Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Disappointment and Door-to-Door Marketing

I knew I had to make some epic moves and do some serious work like Rob & Big to start a career, so I jumped on the job search engine bandwagon. The massive paydays from both my graduation party and birthday were quickly dwindling, whittling down to a pittance of their initial sum. The first one I chose to try was monster.com. After continually striking out with this site, I decided on going to craigslist, because you didn't have to spend time registering with the site, you could just view the jobs directly by category, and simply apply from there. I cited the KISS method: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I decided against the journalism route this time, and instead, decided to reinvent myself by diversifying my talents. Print journalism is a stagnant industry, and no longer are the daily papers the #1 source of media consumption in the United States. Traditional newspapers are constantly laying off workers in today's terrible economy, and some of these daily publications are even going out of business. I wish I opened my friggin eyes four years ago and changed my major.

I've always been interested in sales and marketing. I perused craigslist and found many opportunities for employment. I ended up responding to many, but, as the job search goes, got very few responses. One company in particular, stood out. They said you could "be your own manager." They promised sky's-the-limit pay and they gave a list of reputable clients they "work with," one being my favorite baseball team, the NEW YORK YANKEES!!! That caught my attention like a pretty girl at a construction site.

Enter ASL Marketing Group.

I arranged to meet with them for an interview at their Branford, Conn. office, (about 20 minutes away from my alma-mater Quinnipiac, so I scheduled it on a Friday to make a weekend out of it, having had traveled two and-a-half hours from New Jersey). As you can see from the link, a modern-looking commercial high rise office is pictured on their website. To my surprise, the actual office was actually located in the rear of an industrial building off the Post Rd., nothing like the picture. That should have triggered a red flag right then and there.

I entered the building and found out that I was, in fact, at the right place. I interviewed with the guy who owns the business. After a few brief questions, he told me several times that he was very impressed with my resume and my responses to his questions, blowing smoke up my ass, and that he wanted to schedule a second interview. The initial interview lasted about 10-15 minutes, which is really short for an interview and should have triggered another warning sign, but then again, I was still an interview noob.

I scheduled the second "interview" two weeks later on a Friday (and another weekend at Quinnipiac). It was this time when he arranged for me to go out in the field with his "associate." He drove me and another employee to Milford, which was about a 20-minute car ride away. Shortly thereafter, I found out what I was in store for. 9-10 hours of pounding the pavement knocking on doors trying to push home improvement projects on unsuspecting residents trying to otherwise mind their own business.

The company's acronym, ASL, stands for "Actions Speak Louder," meaning "actions speak louder than words." What that simply translates to is that fact that their "actions" include their "workers" going door-to-door to market for the home improvement contractor company that they share the building with. I know that if I wanted work done on my house, I'll go with a contractor that I know and trust, or do it myself with the Home Depot or Lowes. Either that or get Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor and Al Borland to get the job done and take care of business.



On this particular trip, we canvassed a local neighborhood, knocking on doors of approximately 100 residences beginning at around noon. It was only a short time after Halloween and most of the decorations were still up, and the neighbors at first glance might have thought we were dazed and confused trick-or-treaters trying to score some last minute candy, unfortunately it was NOT the case. It took a couple of hours and only few people answered, seeing that it was a workday.

After a tiring trek around a few blocks, we stopped for lunch at a McDonalds, and I was thinking of ways to escape (to my chagrin, as I said, my car was back in Branford...a 20-minute car ride away, so I had to suck it up). After lunch, it was back to the same block for a second journey around the Milford Tour of Embarrassment, and after that, a third.

As the day wore on, more and more people came back from work/school. The guy I was with was unrelenting and would not take NO for an answer, pressuring otherwise uninterested people to sign up for home improvement services. Some of the residents were naturally hostile and told us to leave and even threatened to call the police on several instances. It was seriously shaping out to be the job interview from hell.

The day finally ended, and no one was more ecstatic than me. We finally drove back to Branford and I had the actual second interview with the same person who interviewed me two weeks earlier. It was a terrible experience, but hey, you have to look at the positives, I got some great exercise and now I know what the hell to avoid on job search sites from companies that don't tell you that their illegitimate business practices entail door-to-door marketing and pyramid scams... Thanks, but no thanks, ASL Marketing Group.


Here are a few things YOU can do to avoid these scams:


1) Take caution when searching "sales" or "marketing" on ANY job search engine.
2) AVOID ALL CAPITAL LETTERS of employment ads from companies promising pay to the moon and back.
3) "A sports-minded company for sports-minded people" IS a red-flag.
4) First interviews aren't meant to be easy. If it seems like a breeze, then something's fishy about the company.
5) RESEARCH the company before you agree to an interview. Go to their website and look up blogs or discussion boards pertaining to the company. First-hand experiences and advice from other people is usually the best method of research.

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