I was excited to be given a job interview the other day for a certain unnamed insurance company, and I was lead to believe the entire way that it was definitely not a sales job. I’d be reviewing benefits with corporate clients and addressing employee benefit concerns. Half hour before the interview, I get a text from the recruiter asking me to review the “join the team” recruitment video and sure enough… it’s a sales job. It says nowhere in the job title or description but upon seeing the word “commission” I knew. I put time out of my day and rescheduled a doctors appointment for this interview. It was by video chat, but still.
I decided to attend. I’ve applied for sales job that actually pay their employees a salary and benefits, so maybe I should give it a try. I was open minded and gave the company a chance. But sure enough, first strike was the fact that it was a group interview. It’s pretty easy to hire as many people as possible when you pay them nothing and exploit their surplus value.
Side note – The first half of the job interview was spent convincing us to buy their insurance. I was promised the group interview was going to be 30 minutes. 45 minutes in before the sales pitch was over. I was furious. One way to make me livid as fast as possible is to take up more of my time than necessary. It’s disrespectful. Maybe it’s a petty pet peeve of mine but I take my time very seriously.
Second strike was the fact I’d have to spend my own time and money earning a license. This is because I’m an “independent business owner” who sells their licensed insurance products. I don’t mind being licensed or having employees get licensed for a job. But so far, it’s just yet another thing I have to pay for to have this job.
The third strike was the compensation. 100% commission. No benefits whatsoever. Your commission just goes up in 5 years. Wife was standing off camera, muted my mic and I explained it to her and we came to the conclusion this wasn’t worth it. Hung up at that point.
Don’t do insurance sales. Waste of your time, if you’re gonna get a sales job get one with a company that values you enough to give you some baseline benefits. They’re out there.
edit: I know it’s tempting to say “MLM”. I’d agree, but This is a major insurance company. Trust me, they could afford to give their employees benefits. Im not gonna name them because I know what little FBI agents some people can be.