The Same Old Song (Now There Are Six)

I went back to the second job interview, and the second day wasn't nearly as bad as the first, which I am guessing is partially because I knew what I was getting into.

Gratefully, the ventriloquist was not singing when I came in on the second day. There were twelve of us there, and only one of them was from the group that I interviewed with. This let me know that they really were culling out people during the interview process. It was much of the same, but they actually showed us the product that we would be selling. I'm not going to lie, the product is pretty darn cool. If I ever can scrape up an extra $2,500 dollars, I might just get one. Until the time that I have that extra money lying around, I'll still be without.

Now that I knew what I was getting into, I realized that they really don't want you push a sale. They were very hands-off when it came to pushing a sale. I appreciate that—mainly because I am not inclined to be a salesman. While the presentation was going on, I had to laugh. The presenter told me that I am really hard to read. I'm not the type to really show my emotions or express myself until I have felt out the other people in the room, so when a guy came in to present the product to us, I wasn't ready to jump in and interact. I'm much too cautious for that.

Some of the information they were giving to us was a bit gimmicky. Some of the statistics were clearly scare tactics, and some of the logical arguments could have been easily discounted. But as I was not ready to jump in and participate with more than a one or two word answer, I didn't open my mouth. Plus, I didn't want to be contrary to a potential employer by telling him that his logic was flawed.

So, there I was at the end of a three hour interview where they didn't really talk to me again. They had me fill out another sheet of paper and asked me a few more questions. One of the questions they had on there was, "In what ways can you be a value to our company." I answered truthfully and told them that I really didn't know, because they didn't tell me much about the needs of the company, so I couldn't address that question. I did tell them that I had learned a lot about presenting information through my education, and I guess that was enough to get them to bite. I got invited back to the Management Training Program on Wednesday.

When I got home, Wifey asked me how I felt it went. I told her that I still wasn't sure, because I hadn't really had an interview yet. I had just been given training and asked to fill out two simple questionnaires. She asked me if I was planning on going back to the training, and I didn't feel strongly either way, so I thought that I had better. Maybe the Management Training Program would be better.

And so I went. And the training was better. There were seven of us there. A few more had been culled from the group, including the very vocal guy who was digging the ventriloquist act from the first day. I was the only one from my original group.

The training had us interacting more, and they finally told me what was expected of me should I be hired on as a manager. One of the things that made me consider this position was the fact that I didn't have to go sell to my friends and family. I don't think that personal relationships should be used for business purposes (most of the time), and I have never felt comfortable using my relationship as leverage to get someone to buy something.

We went through the training on how to generate leads in an appointment. And things seemed to look alright, because you just asked the people you were with to give you leads. I felt a bit uncomfortable that you had to have them pull out their phone right then and there and call the people to set up appointments after you had only been with them for about ten minutes and they didn't even really understand what the product did.

While we were practicing, a little flag went off in my head. One of the things they do to entice more leads out of people is give them free stuff. While the stuff is pretty good, they ask you to put other people's names and email addresses into their system (without their prior consent) to get some of this stuff. My flag kept waving when they told me that my homework was to go and use their online system to register myself and those that I knew who were qualified for their product into their system.

Knowing that I wasn't going to do this, even if it was "just to practice" on my family and friends, I realized that the position was not for me. After the presentations of the day were over, I went up to the trainer and told her that I really didn't think this would be a good fit for me. And it was really easy to say no.

And now there are six in the training program.