a scam

today i went on a job interview. it was my first in a long time, so you could imagine how excited i was. i had called a response to an ad on the internet for the human rights campaign. knowing that it was an organization i respected, i had hoped to learn more about what kind of help the campaign needed...and what kind of employment i could possibly gain.

unfortunately, the promises made to me on the telephone were completely fabricated.

at the beginning, the interviewer notified me that they were looking for solicitors to go from door to door asking for money for the human rights campaign. i had let him know that, given my experience and current studies, i was looking for something a little more challenging and higher ranking.

well, he said that we could talk it over and that i should come downtown to visit him for an interview. all sorts of alarms went off at this point. it sounded like the same kind of phone conversation i went on with a similar job back in new jersey.

turns out i was right.

the Fund for Public Interest, or PIRG, trains their recruiters to try and get as many recent graduates to come to their offices for a heavily rehearsed and scripted interview, letting them know that they will work from one to ten five days a week and make roughly 400-600 dollars a week, depending on how many people they get to sign up and donate funds.

here's how it went with me, keep in mind that a close friend of mine worked with this company in 2008 and taught me the tricks of the trade.

there were other people my age in attendance, just as fresh-faced but nowhere nearly professionally dressed as myself. we were all briefed on the pay, the hours and how "progressive" they were. all the other guys seemed to be ready to sell themselves for 400 bucks a week. i was ready to high-tail it out of there.

then came the individual interviews.

the way it goes is they first sit you down, small talk and immediately ask you about what to say when someone at the door you're canvassing appears to be interested in your cause. before he gets the chance to do that, i let him know that we spoke on the phone about other business opportunities within the organization and that a friend of mine has worked for this company and done his exact job for a long time.

his reply, "o that's cool. i was only hired in decemeber, so i probably wouldn't know your friend."

december. that's right. last month. the thing about this organization is that there is a very high turnover because kids get tired of working with little promise of a better position down the line. they also learn that, because the company jumps from cause to cause, the canvasser merely raises money for the organization and spreads the money out to a multitude of whatever it deems most important. you may consider yourself "progressive" and fighting the good fight by working for them, but chances are they money you've raised is going towards some other program.

i say, "well to be honest, i'd probably wind up saying whatever it is that the script says. look, i can tell you that i can throw in personal testimony and something off the top of my head, but c'mon, you and i both know that it's best for anyone with this job to just stick to the script. you're conducting this interview based on a script right now."

his reply, "uhhh, ok."

i then try to tell him about the phone conversation i had with him on friday about the potential to work with the human rights campaign in other fields. i also said i would even look into working with PIRG in the advocacy and field-staff sector.

his robotic response was along the lines of "well we're only the canvassing office. we don't communicate with the other offices."

i started to get heated.

"then why was i told on the telephone that i was able to get more information about working with other parts of the company?"

"im sorry things didn't work out today."

interview over



on the plus side, it was really nice outside today.