I was contacted by two different recruiters - first the recruiter will give you a quick phone screening, then another recruiter called me 30 minutes later and did another phone screening before setting up an office interview the same week.
The first interview in-office seemed very casual, she basically just wanted me to go through my resume, and carried on more of a casual conversation after that. When I asked if she had any more questions for me- she responded "no not really, when I have less questions that means I like you".... Seemed like an inexperienced interviewer.
The office dress was not as professional as I had expected either, one girl in the office had on a dress you could actually see through. Aside from that, I was definitely impressed by the amount of money they said you could make in the beginning, it almost seemed too good to be true. However, this is definitely the factor that kept me really wanting to continue through the process.
Next, I got called in for the phone canvassing. The team was super nice and very helpful in what works best on the phone when setting appointments. They said she gave me a great area to call, which meant she actually wanted to hire me. I set 3 appointments in the first 45 minutes of calling, so the office manager let me go an hour early- which was disappointing because I wanted to see how many I could set in the allotted time.
The next step was an interview with the regional sales director via webcam- my recruiter set this up for the wrong day initially, but I thought it went well once I had the interview.
The next step was when something really started to not feel right.... I was called to go on a ride-along with a sales rep.- I was also told if all went well with this then it would be the final step before an offer. The ride along was changed to lunch the following day, then I received text message an hour and half before I was to leave my house for lunch asking if I could come in for dinner instead, so I had to completely rearrange my schedule twice for the 2 hour drive each way.
The reps who took me to dinner seemed to have no idea what was going on- they didn't know where I was in the interview process, they seemed like they didn't know what exactly we were going to dinner for... It also seemed like they were holding something back or I was missing something.... I was actually told that "sometimes the manager really likes people but just decides not to hire them after taking them through the interview process because they don't have the time or feel like training them...." At that point I was very confused as I thought I was interviewing for an open position that they needed to fill, not just going through the interview process for the sake of going through it.
I was told I was moving on to the final interview round- only to be contacted later and told that "They were going pass"- again not a very professional way to tell someone you are not going to hire them (maybe "pursuing other candidates" or "opportunities" would have been a better way to phrase that). After being told all along that they really liked me and by the reps. that management wanted to hire me and then not being offered, I felt very strung along by the whole process. The interview process is tortuous as they keep telling you this is the last step and it isn't.... it seems like they think the only thing people have going on in their lives is this interview. Did they really need to take me through 5 whole steps to decide I wasn't the right person for the job? Especially, because any decent candidate probably has a ton of other interviews going on at the same time.
Another red-flag is the fact that no one in the entire office had been a rep. for longer than 2.5 years.... and whenever it came up, anyone I talked to seemed very quick to cover-up why a person was no longer working there. Maybe it is because the company is growing so quickly, but I kind of got the impression either you are good enough to move up quickly to a manger status, or you quit from the intensity of the job. Seems like they draw in young, recent college grads. on the premise they are going to make a ridiculous amount of money.
All in all there were some positives and negatives to the experience. Having a recruiter and a contact person is nice, a lot of companies are doing that these days. The other sales reps. seemed like they wanted you to work there- nice people. It is for the best I did not get an offer, after awkwardness of my last interview I had decided not to accept if I was offered. Just way too many red-flags during just the interviews, management seemed too inexperienced, seems like a temporary job. My advice would be to not be jaded by what they tell you that you can make there, they lead with the money thing for a reason. Go with a more recognizable, well-known company if you can.