I sent my CV in response to a promising-sounding advert for a marketing firm - entry-level, full in-house training, and a pretty good wage (plus commission). The website looked impressively professional - not exactly overflowing with information, but it seemed like the kind of glossy, accessible homepage of a good firm.
I found the place alright - an office above a disused shop (which was in the process of being gutted; how prophetic), and an A4 sheet pointing the way up a staircase. Alarm bells starting ringing. Okay, this is probably just a satellite office, probably just temporary, but it looked like it all be packed up into three cardboard boxes in under half an hour. The receptionist directed me to a waiting room, where I filled out a form, which I found slightly strange given that I had submitted my CV and was now asked to re-supply most of the information. The waiting-room was sparse and lead onto another office, into which people were being called by a very excitable young man. As I sat there, watching everyone else gradually disappearing, I felt a mood of melancholy sweep over the room. I realised why. On the sideboard was a CD player, and it was playing Radiohead. Nothing puts you in the mood more for impressing an employer than existential gloom-rock.
Eventually, a man came in, introduced himself as the one who would be interviewing me, and led me into his office. It wasn't particularly large, but it was disconcertingly empty. First of all, he asked me for my CV (which I had brought as instructed), before explaining how the training worked. There are four parts, he explained, which should take a maximum of 12 months, and he was very keen to emphasise the 'record-breakers' who had completed the whole thing in four. When I asked about the starting salary and pay structure, he told me that would be discussed at the second interview (if I got one). The second interview, he said, would be slightly more hands-on. He kept emphasising the 'aggressive' nature of their campaigns and name-dropping their clients - Disney, Victoria Jackson comestics, and Barclays. I asked him what exactly they did for Barclays, what marketing service they actually provided, and the answer was garbled and vague to say the least. But it was when he talked about becoming an 'owner' after completing the training that I really started to worry. I'm not sure what it was, but it sounded like franchising, and certainly not the kind of talk you would expect from an established and successful marketing company. I didn't see how after a period of intensive training, an entry-level employee would be handed complete control of a campaign. He had, apparently, full control of one of their high-profile campaigns. Fair enough, but brand management (which he claimed was within his remit) is a delicate business, and it seemed somewhat doubtful that an employee of only 12 months would be put in charge of an entire campaign. Something is rotten.
There was the air of desperation in that office; it felt like a loan-shark's, not a professional and 'dynamic' business. The promises of high wages within a year and the lure of power didn't correspond in the slightest to the shabbiness of their workplace. Apart from the training process, nothing else was explained with any enthusiasm, let alone clarity. Unlike other interviews, he asked me no questions about myself (except where I'd come from, and I spent about five minutes explaining why it had taken me 2 hours to drive down, which he vehemently denied was possible), and gave me few actual details about the company. My questions were barely answered or brushed aside entirely, and by the end of this very brief interview, I had no desire to work with this guy or the company. My advice is to avoid Red Square Direct in the same way that you'd avoid a salesman in the street trying to foist cheap make-up bags on you.
Boredyet
Oxford
United Kingdom
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