He applied for a sales administrator role: $24 an hour, 7:30 to 4:30, five minutes from home. The calendar invite for the phone interview said Brand Ambassador Interview.
He asked about it. The recruiter, Deanna, blamed the automated calendar. Then she explained the actual structure of the job. There were three tiers. The first was standing in a home improvement store, generating leads for bathroom remodels. The second was a call centre. The third was outside sales: driving an 80- to 100-mile radius, four weekdays plus one weekend day, closing $15,000 to $20,000 bathroom jobs in a single visit. Commission was 9 percent, split three ways across the tiers, and zero if the customer cancelled before installation. No mileage.
He asked questions she could not answer. How many leads convert? What is the average close rate? Her answer: “I don't have the exact answer. I prefer not to tell you something I'm not sure about.”
Then she called him days early, hung up when he pushed back, and told him the phone had disconnected. On the day, she was thirty minutes late. When he named the gap between the advertised role and the job she had described, she said: “Based on your answers, I believe this job is not the right one for you.”
He wrote that he agreed.