Called by the sales manager, asking me to come in for an interview. Arrived later that day for the interview. The place was a total dump. Broken chairs, rotting desks, and insects/bugs around the office. The chair I sat in had a busted back that leaned to the side and had tears and rips in it. The manager was hyping up the job and "selling" me on the money potential. I knew right off the bat that this place was going to be a joke. He asks me some real basic, elementary questions and went over my job experience. He then tells me his "vision" for the new operation we would be starting up. He then had me do a "sales test" involving selling him a case of pens, using a single pen as the "prop". I aced the interview and he continues to talk all "tough" and talks about earning our keep, yadda yadda yadda. Don't get me wrong, I am an extremely hard worker and I hate the idea of entitlement. I just couldn't stand the "fake" that this guy was oozing. He then asks me why he should hire me and why I feel I'm the best fit for this outstanding opportunity. I gave him the tap dance routine. He then tells me to wait in the room for a few minutes. I knew I had the job locked at that point. He then comes back into the room and gives me an offer on the spot. I then proceed to negotiate a higher salary. He then slams me, pulling the whole Glengarry Glenross routine about how I need to "realize what kind of opportunity I'm being given and that he had a whole line of other applicants that he could offer this position to at a lower rate and they would snatch it up." He was absolutely right...there are other people that would take this job at a lower rate of pay than what I was offered, but I didn't budge. He eventually caved to the amount I was asking for. In truth, I was actually a little shocked that they offered the base salary they did for this position. I knew the hours were going to be long and we were gonna probably be pulling 6 and 7 day weeks consistently....so my expectation was to just take this job and save up some money in the process, pay off my car, and save up for a new place.
We literally got our hands dirty and renovated the part of the building we'd be working in. Then we trained a few new hire classes. Our center kicked ass, (#1 out of #13) for the first couple months of the busy season. Everybody was making good money. Some sales reps were reeling in $1-2k commission checks each WEEK, not including their base salary! We were all in for a rude awakening though when the "busy season" died after about 5 or 6 weeks. We were told that things wouldn't slow down until at least deep into the fall/early winter. Wellllll.....we just kept getting fed BS by corporate and lied to about leads. The leads ended up being dried up, beaten, abused, and recycled...calling on customers for the 9th time in a week! It was a sad state and sales reps were making crap for money, and as you can imagine, management wasn't getting bonuses any longer. Sorry, but the base salary ain't gonna cut it when pulling 70+ hour weeks. Even with the "maxed out" bonus...it only allowed me to maintain my base rate of pay, based on a 40 hour work week....meaning if we hit our standard bonus or no bonus at all....our pay rate was GARBAGE!
Be prepared to lie, manipulate, and sell your soul, all for the sake of maybe getting an extra $1,000 a month, if you're lucky. The days of making a $2k bonus are long gone, and hitting a standard bonus is pretty much impossible now.
The interview was cake. If you're fairly sharp, driven, and motivated...you'll ace this joke of an interview.