A Call From Insurance Company Evades Actually Offering The Job
Wow, waving our red flag high are we?
So I get a call this afternoon from someone who saw my resume on careerbuilder.com, and he wants to set up an interview tomorrow. It's from the agriculturalist's market insurance in Dublin CA: which is about a 30 minute drive one way, and that's WITHOUT traffic of any sort.
I told him from the onset that I am looking for an administrative job. I ask him directly if he actually has that sort of job for me to apply to.
Him: *being evasive* Oh we have lots of positions.
Me: Well I am specifically looking for an administrative job. I need to know whether you do have those positions available for me before I make the actual drive.
(I've got a quarter of a tank left and the only way to drive anywhere is to ask mom and dad for money. Needless to say unless it's an actual job that I'm actually applying for, any trip is just a waste of gas and money.)
Him: *still evasive* Well we have lots of positons including retail and manager positions.
Me: So you're not even going to tell me that the position that I'm looking for is even available?
Him: My supervisor didn't tell me that, he was just interested in your resume and had me call you.
Me: Yeah I think I'm going to pass. My resume was very clear on what I was looking for, and I don't want my time to be wasted again.
(If you remember, the last time I got called in, it was a bait and switch for door-to-door selling of AT&T upgrades.)
Really? REALLY? I can't be more in-your-face obvious than my clearly stated objective as well as the link to my resume stating "receptionist or administrative assistant."
This was Farmer's Market Insurance. They do NOT read your resumes online. And they will bombard you with "opportunities." I just cleaned out my professional e-mail of 15 of the damn things since Christmas Eve... goddamn.
Grrr. These people suck.
May all your job offers be on topic with your resumes,
Posted by Ilia on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 | Permalink
|
Comments (8)
"Grrr. These people suck."
Yes. Yes, they do. There are some good recruiters out there, but a distressingly large number of them suck.
Posted by: BPFH | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 06:54 AM
I've been spammed by these people too. When they called me, I took a rather more assertive tone with them.
Specifically, I said, "I'm an IT Project Manager, with over 20 years of server and network management experience. What the F*** makes you think I'd be interested in, let alone good at selling insurance?!?!"
They hung up.
Posted by: MovedOn | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 09:23 AM
No one's called me yet, but I get 3-5 emails a week like this. And they're from companies I've never heard of. "We're expanding in your area!"
Mmm-hmmm. Tell me, am I going to have to pay for training and materials? What about certifications? I think you have to be certified to sell certain types of insurance products. But I wouldn't know for sure, BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ANY INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE!
Honestly, I think if you swap out the name of the insurance company for any other multi-level marketing company, (Avon, Mary Kay, Amway...) and the come-on sounds the same, you have your answer.
Posted by: TaTa Ria | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 10:02 AM
I constantly have the same problem. I actually had one person argue with me with her trying to convince me I had extensive sales background. Yes I worked in retail, but if they had read even just the positions held they would know all I've done is build displays and cashier! I'm great at taking money but anything beyond "do you need brushes or rollers for that paint?" is beyond me. I can barely manage to call my mom without texting her first, let alone cold call people all day to sell them insurance
Posted by: Devilsangel | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 12:56 PM
Oh geez, selling At&T door to door. I interviewed for one of those positions and they sent me to shadow one of their salespeople. It was terrifying. We had people scream at us, threaten to call the cops on us and one lady got a shotgun after us (and this was in a nice suburban neighborhood). Sales guy told me we weren't allowed to leave until they shut the door on us (strangely enough, almost no one did -.-*). I prayed that half of our houses wouldn't be home or would be kind enough to not answer the door. Eight hours later, I told them I didn't think I was qualified.
Posted by: foxgirltori | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 02:29 PM
I had someone contact me recently about a position in my field. (Ball!)
It was a junior-level position. (Resumé says he's got 15 years experience, strike 1!)
And they wanted a MAXIMUM of 3 years of experience. Yes, maximum--I had to read it twice to be sure myself. (Strike 2, and fuck baseball rules, he's out for being a dumbass!)
Posted by: BPFH | Thursday, January 02, 2014 at 07:23 AM
MovedOn et al; I've had the same problem. 16 years of tech support on custom software experience apparently just SCREAMS insurance salesman... like nine different companies are STILL bugging me.
BPFH: Way back when, I saw an ad for Win95 support asking for five years of experience. In 1998. Along with 'if you do not meet these qualifications your application will be discarded'.
Posted by: TechTyger | Thursday, January 02, 2014 at 02:40 PM
"We think you'll be do well for the job you are suited for!"
What part of 7 years of IT experience qualifies me to cold-call for State Farm?
Posted by: Jason Thorn | Monday, January 06, 2014 at 05:00 AM