Interviewed with a company today that on the surface seemed to be pretty typical office environment. It was a finance company and the interview started off awesome and the boss was digging me. I start asking questions about advancement and performance. I then get told that they set a “goal” for me to hit every month for new business plus a separate goal on the collections side.
I’m like ok I’m no stranger to goals or expectations so I ask what tools are given to me to achieve the goals. I get “what do you mean”. So I explain they have set a goal for me to get so many thousands of dollars in new lending so how do I do that and what does the company give me to accomplish that. She tells me a portion will be walk ins (something I have no control over) and the other portion will be calls. I ask “calls to whom”. She says ”our customers”. I ask “new ones like leads or current?” She says current. I digest this.
“Current customers who already have loans with us? I will call them and try and get them to borrow more money”. She says “yes”. So I tell her “so to summarize, I will be expected to achieve a goal but whether or not I achieve it is dependent on how much business walks In the door which I have no say so in and whether I can convince a portion of current customers to take on more debt. Customers that I will be calling repeatedly (4 times daily) because they are late on payments but I want them to accept more money from me.” She kinda dead stares at me.
“And let’s say I don’t hit my (goal), let’s say my goal was 75k but I did 50 what would happen?” She says “well that would be a tough conversation we would have”. I say “so instead of a goal it is a quota”. We go round and round for a minute until I politely tell her. “I don’t think this is a job for me, I will absolutely come in and do the processes and hammer the phones and be awesome and do everything you want me to do but I can’t accept being held accountable for results when I barely have any control in achieving them. It’s as if you are showing me a pile of lumber and expecting me to build a house but not giving me the tools to do it and I don’t like being set up for failure”
She says “it’s not for everyone”. Now so am sure for the next week or however long she will be saying “no one wants to work”