Tips for interview with Primerica? Tonight is interview 1 of 2.

[Red]

Ok, so this resume has landed me two interviews this week.

1st interview: Guy from Primerica saw my resume on CareerBuilder.com, sent me an e-mail and gave me his local # to call and talk about employment. He said they are expanding from 13 to 27 locations in my area and are hiring many people and was interested in my resume because I have training experience and because I worked for Citigroup for 1.5 years.

He said it was a business atmosphere, and I know financial institution are traditional, so I'm going to wear a full suit with tie, shiny shoes, and come ready with firm, dry handshakes and great answers in the interview.

What I'd like help with is doing my best during this thing. I'm young and I know I need to master being confident without being confident during the interview. Tonight is an open house thing @ their office @ 7:00pm. He said it's basically a screening process, and if both parties (he and I) are still interested in one another, we will progress so a single, final interview.

Could you guys please fill me on on these types of open house screening processes? I've already started researching about the company @ primerica.com in case I need to dazzle them with homework skills, lol.

I'm still upset that I wasn't able to land the corporate communications position @ Cincy Bell so I'd love for this to work out.

Thanks guys.

 

[isekii]

my friend did this for over a year.
he didn't get anything out of it.

He tried to get me to do it but I don't like the whole recruiting/pyramid bs.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: isekii
my friend did this for over a year.
he didn't get anything out of it.

He tried to get me to do it but I don't like the whole recruiting/pyramid bs.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Oh, but to answer your question. I went to a Primerica interview once. If you go dressed like that you will quite possibly be overdressed. They just want to make sure you can talk to people and can possibly sell something. They're not looking for business people. They're looking for sales people.

 

Primerica is a pyramid schemed organization. Read up on it on Google. If you're comfortable with that, go for it.

 

[StageLeft]

I've posted a lot on this in the past and there was a huge thread about it a while back. The overwhelming consensus was to not go with Primerica. They will tell you lots of stories, but when it all comes down to it it sounds too good to be true because it is. If you already have a job I would urge you to not consider them, quite frankly. They are a legalized pyramid scheme and anybody dening that is lying to you or lying to themselves.

He said it's basically a screening process, and if both parties (he and I) are still interested in one another, we will progress so a single, final interview.

I hate to say it, but it's not a screening process for him. Unless you show up and smell badly and curse and look like a total dolt he will be interested in you. Given the pyramid nature of it they try to recruit as many people as possible.

You'll note that there is no income you'll be paid - it's entirely commission based, and he also will not give you a statistical average salary over the first month or three months or whatever, because most people don't do very well. You hit up friends and family for business.

 

[Red]

So are they actually trying to hire me on as an employee or are they trying to sell me life insurance? I looked up google and you guys are apparently right =( It's some thing where people try to get referrals and things.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Red
So are they actually trying to hire me on as an employee or are they trying to sell me life insurance? I looked up google and you guys are apparently right =( It's some thing where people try to get referrals and things.

They are not hiring you because hiring typically involves a salary. They are recruiting you. Picture a door to door salesmen who makes nothing but commission. That will be you. They make their money by you selling insurance to somebody. You make some money off that, the guy above you makes money, and the guy above him makes money. The people at the top get lots of money and the people at the bottom (most people) make crappy money.

Find a local job board and I bet you'll see dozens of posts from Primerica looking for employees. They inundate job boards with people because they'll "hire" anybody.

Your job involves sitting around and giving insurance/personal finance advice presentations to friends/family and hoping that they buy through you.

I looked into a few years ago and went through the first interview and I could quickly tell that even though I was unemployed at the time I was still too good for that.

The place I interviewed with had people working there (around 6 in a tiny office) who seemed down on their luck or lacked an education. They would take turns feeding in their data into a single office computer. It was depressing, quite frankly. You can do better, Red. You still have a job, as much as you hate it, just keep looking

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Red
So are they actually trying to hire me on as an employee or are they trying to sell me life insurance? I looked up google and you guys are apparently right =( It's some thing where people try to get referrals and things.

They're trying to recruit you to sell life insurance and to recruit other people to sell life insurance. The amount of money you get paid will be based on how much you sell, how much the people you recruit sell, how much the people they recruit sell, etc. (this is a pretty rough description but fairly close to the truth)

Pyramid.

 

[Atomicus]

My friend dragged me and two of my friends one summer to one of their "invitation-only interest meetings" in a hotel 3 blocks from Rockerfeller Towers. They promised the chance to "help people get out of debt" and the opportunity to make "tons of money just by helping people".

BS. So then we decided to meet the day after with my friend and one of his supervisors in private. We drilled them with questions about how they would provide debt relief to their customers and exactly what the lower ranked employees do in the company. Their answer was "you have to join to find out". Another wad of BS because if I was a potential customer/employee on the spot, they are obligated to detail their approaches on debt relief and what are the job responsibilities. Oh, there's also a joining fee of about $150 to become "certifief" as some kind of financial advisor...

Basically at the end, we gave our farewells with a NYC style 70degree finger. Pyramid schemeand promises of BIG MONEY in a short amount of time.... WHILE being a company which is suppose to reduce debt? THEN WERE DOES THEIR SALARIES COME FROM? THE LOW-END EMPLOYEES PAYCHECKS!

 

[Red]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Red
So are they actually trying to hire me on as an employee or are they trying to sell me life insurance? I looked up google and you guys are apparently right =( It's some thing where people try to get referrals and things.

They are not hiring you because hiring typically involves a salary. They are recruiting you. Picture a door to door salesmen who makes nothing but commission. That will be you. They make their money by you selling insurance to somebody. You make some money off that, the guy above you makes money, and the guy above him makes money. The people at the top get lots of money and the people at the bottom (most people) make crappy money.

Find a local job board and I bet you'll see dozens of posts from Primerica looking for employees. They inundate job boards with people because they'll "hire" anybody.

Your job involves sitting around and giving insurance/personal finance advice presentations to friends/family and hoping that they buy through you.

I looked into a few years ago and went through the first interview and I could quickly tell that even though I was unemployed at the time I was still too good for that.

The place I interviewed with had people working there (around 6 in a tiny office) who seemed down on their luck or lacked an education. They would take turns feeding in their data into a single office computer. It was depressing, quite frankly. You can do better, Red. You still have a job, as much as you hate it, just keep looking

Wellll then, should I even bother going? I don't want to waste a beautiful evening going to some place where they are going to pressure me into joining a pyramid.

In your honest opinion, should I just skip it and keep looking? I have another interview tomorrow night with some Pharmacutical company that sells male enhancement products (not kidding) and they receive about 30,000 phone calls per day. Since I have 4+ years of call center experience, they really liked my resume and said they would like to talk about hiring me as a lead (of about 15-20 call center agents) but the commute is 40 minutes one way =( And I'm not sure if the pay is going to offset the gas. I make $10.25/hr now, so unless this place is going to pay $20/hr or something, I'm not going to bother driving 40 minutes to work everyday, especially since I've my got my last year of school left.

 

[minendo]

Wellll then, should I even bother going?

The answer to that is pretty damn obvious.

 

[SWScorch]

gah, my mother just joined into this scheme. She's so gullible, she'll try anything just to get some extra bucks. For a while she was selling wholesale collectibles, bought thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and maybe sold $50 worth. Then she went to some seminar where they charged her hundreds of dollars to set up a website and online shopping cart and a merchant account to accept credit cards, and locked her into a three-year lease and she never even did anything with it. And now she's in Primerica, which I had heard was a pyramid scheme and basically worthless to most people, but she was so excited as the prospect of making comission she dove in with both feet. From what she's told me, they sound like a cult. Any organization that flies people in to give speeches and testimonials about how much money they're making to recruit more people sounds shady to me.

Anyway, she's been in there for a few months now, made about $120 so far on commission. And, to answer your question, if you are still interested, dress up a little, but don't overdo it. Just look presentable.

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: minendo

Wellll then, should I even bother going?

The answer to that is pretty damn obvious.

well, it goes both ways, if Red goes, he will learn the hard way.
if he doesn't, he will never get it.


I went once, and boy I felt uncomfortable.

 

[Maverick]

sounds like Kramerica or whatever from Seinfeld

I've heard of this scam though...steer clear.

 

[StageLeft]

Wellll then, should I even bother going?

Absolutely not.

In your honest opinion, should I just skip it and keep looking?

Most definitely.

They are a waste of time. If you want to continue to think about it just keep this thread bumped and I guarantee that as the day goes on you'll have more and more people posting bad things about "working" for Primerica.

I have another interview tomorrow night with some Pharmacutical company that sells male enhancement products (not kidding) and they receive about 30,000 phone calls per day. Since I have 4+ years of call center experience, they really liked my resume and said they would like to talk about hiring me as a lead (of about 15-20 call center agents) but the commute is 40 minutes one way =( And I'm not sure if the pay is going to offset the gas. I make $10.25/hr now, so unless this place is going to pay $20/hr or something, I'm not going to bother driving 40 minutes to work everyday, especially since I've my got my last year of school left.

Well, at least that's a real job, and not a real joke

 

[Red]

Thank you guys so much for telling me about this. Here I was, getting all nervous about a big-shot Citigroup company interview and they are trying to suck me into something else. Grrrr.

 

[StageLeft]

I went once, and boy I felt uncomfortable.

My experience to a T. It was a TWO F*@(ING HOUR interview. I shouldn't say interview, because it's not an interview - it was him basically giving his damn presentation to me. By the end I could hardly stay awake. I was glad to be out of there and emailed him the next day saying sorry I'm not interested. Toodles.

 

[Rufio]

i'ts super duper lame. don't do it.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: Rufio
i'ts super duper lame. don't do it.

 

[GasX]

If you get an Interview at Kramerica, GO FOR IT!

btw, Primerica sucks

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

I went once, and boy I felt uncomfortable.

My experience to a T. It was a TWO F*@(ING HOUR interview. I shouldn't say interview, because it's not an interview - it was him basically giving his damn presentation to me. By the end I could hardly stay awake. I was glad to be out of there and emailed him the next day saying sorry I'm not interested. Toodles.

i almost got sucked in too. they came to our college campus (rutgers university) to recruit people. they were throwing out a bunch of numbers and high earnings...that caught my attention. so i ended up going to their NYC interview...or should i call it a recruitment presentation. basically 4 or 5 guys dressed in armani suits spoke of how this company is legit, its NOT a pyramid scheme :roll: and how they reduce debt for people. although they threw out a lot of numbers, they never spoke a word of what exactly the new hires are supposed to do. it looked rather fishy to me!

oh one guy also spoke of the average salary being like 100K after 2 years....but not one word of what percentage of new hires make it past a year. basically this is the gist of it. if you are persuasive and can make people hand over their money, this is the job for you. but most arent like that. they pay the $199 fee to join (what company requires U to pay money to be employed????) and end up realizing that this is not what they want/this is not easy/they are no good at this/cant sell any products....and get canned within a year. so basically only a small percentage of the initial group that joined, that ones that are good at manipulating people, remain after a year. so no wonder the average salaray after 2 years is so high....they fire all the ones that cant make any money for primerica!

i say dont go. its a waste of time.

PS. i guess they are desparate. they kept on calling me twice a week for a month after i decided i dont wanna do this. very annoying!

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

I went once, and boy I felt uncomfortable.

My experience to a T. It was a TWO F*@(ING HOUR interview. I shouldn't say interview, because it's not an interview - it was him basically giving his damn presentation to me. By the end I could hardly stay awake. I was glad to be out of there and emailed him the next day saying sorry I'm not interested. Toodles.

hehe, I was late too. so at first I felt very guilty, and then later I felt it was a wise decision

 

[BlamoHammer]

It sucks, its like everything else in life and as others have said...if it sounds like easy money, something is wrong.

 

[kt]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

I went once, and boy I felt uncomfortable.

My experience to a T. It was a TWO F*@(ING HOUR interview. I shouldn't say interview, because it's not an interview - it was him basically giving his damn presentation to me. By the end I could hardly stay awake. I was glad to be out of there and emailed him the next day saying sorry I'm not interested. Toodles.

LOL. I remember going to one of those a couple of years ago. 30 minutes into the "interview" I excused myself to go to the restroom. I packed all my stuff together and head for the door. I remembered one of the "presenter" waiting to give his presentation asked me if I were coming back. I smiled and replied politely, "No."