from sham wow! to scam...wow.

PR professionals know that research is vitally important. this extends beyond campaigns.

i like to know who i am interviewing with. today, i found ripoffreport.com a little bit later than i wish i had.

i consider myself a smart girl. i recently graduated from Seton Hall with a Bachelor's in Public Relations, have held multiple internships, and peppered my resume with various extracurricular activities to spice up my communications background. needless to say after four years of hard work, what this last "Marketing firm" i interviewed at considered "entry level" was offensive to me.

on my first interview, I met, as many have, with the owner of the company. he seemed like a cool guy with a unique story. but red flags popped up faster than strawberry fields in john lennon's mind after tripping on drugs. first, tony didn't have a computer in his office nor a laptop anywhere in sight. I have yet to meet a marketing professional who didn't constantly have some component of the microsoft suite open, usually excel. second, I came prepared with a sample campaign, writing samples, and an audio reel. in three interviews, nobody in the company asked to see any of my previous work.

i went back for a round two after a pithy first interview, optimistic that my second impression would be better than my first. false.

i entered a lobby of people who were eagerly awaiting second interviews--all familiar faces that waited for my first interview. it seemed they didn't cut anybody from round one. i met with the owner again, who quickly shuffled me off to an assistant manager. she took me outside, to a PARK BENCH, to conduct the interview. because interviews don't feel like interrogation enough. it was like movie scenes where a criminal is sweating under the heat of direct questioning and a bright light. but instead of the bright light, i had THE SUN. furthermore, other interviews were conducted on surrounding park benches. smokers anxiously awaited for these seats to be vacated.

after making several non-offensive but still inappropriate comments about her gay friends, she made a list of my positives and negatives, and manipulated them to her liking. she invalidated much of my very valid experience so that i would fall between her sweet spot of overqualified for what they consider entry level, and underqualified for what they consider management. the overqualification is supposed to make you "want management more." hearing about the entry level duties made me "want the leave the interview more." furthermore, they only promote from within, so even if I was qualified, it wasn't "their" qualified. did I mention I applied for an entry level position and never asked about management?

but that's where they see everyone. managers. promoted within three months to do the work i probably could be doing now. among her "concerns" and "negatives" about me was that I never managed an account before. i corrected her, and noted that I have an entire campaign with a real world client from my coursework. she decided that because I didn't manage the budget of my client, it wasn't valid experience. my client was a non-profit that relied on the surrounding community support and partnerships, which is MORE work.

after she manufactured other cons about me that i happily rebutted, she told me she was taking me directly to a client. on the way over in the car, because I said in the interview that I was creative, she said she wanted me to think of a marketing scheme that would produce money for Home Depot, which is where we drove to. the 20 minute car ride surprisingly was not enough for my to come up with a business development plan, but i scrapped a plan together in my head. we sat down at home depot, needlessly offsite. i never thought i would long to be back on a park bench interview, but it was a fond memory because i hadn't yet wasted my entire day.

discussing my scheme, i informed her that my tactics are based on research and related objectives. but this made me incompetent. why she felt the need to try and tear me down in a warehouse setting is still something i have yet to understand. she was flustered by my every rebuttle, and hated that i was qualified.

after reviewing my creative tactics that were pathetic because they were untied to research and objectives, she asked me how I would raise awareness of my campaign. I noted that I would use PR because we were on a budget, and as all integrated marketing specialists should know, PR is about unpaid, uncontrolled messages. she then told me that buying print, radio, and tv ads was a waste of money and not cost effective to the rest of my makeshift campaign. i then explained to her the difference between advertising and PR, which made me feel really secure since I was informing my interviewer of her job.

she then told me about what her company did for home depot, which was sway buyers to update their kitchens instead or remodel them, which was more cost effective for the consumer, especially in this economy, and pulled in more leads. she then pampered me with stats about how well Home Depot is doing thanks to them.

after this nonsense, she told me I was going to see what my job as an entry level professional would be. finally i would get to see the intense research, carefully planned objectives, creative programming, and precise evaluation that went into campaigns. instead she took me around home depot, and bugged customers to see if they heard about the plan, and see if they wanted to sign up for a demo. entry level PR professionals are not girl scouts selling boxes of cookies door to door. it's insulting, and furthermore, it's not marketing or PR. it's customer service. it's not grassroots. it's annoying.

finally I drove back with no legitimate directions for a 10 minute third interview with Tony. first I had to fill out a questionnaire, asking me if i knew the difference between indirect and direct marketing among many other questions. he closed by once again failing to look at the evidence I had from my previous experiences and internships. but at this point i didn't care, i was half way tuned out watching the clock...and still looking to see if there was a computer.

i believe in integrated communications--i think it makes a lot of sense to assess a client's needs and treat their symptoms rather than have a client distinguish between PR, advertising, and marketing, and decide what is best for them. but this was a hollow shell of that thought process.

entry level marketing and PR professionals deserve better than to be the guys selling tickets in Times Square for comedy shows. Magnum is a suited version of this.

if you are looking for work, don't go here. if you are looking to fulfill your marketing needs, don't go here. you just may end up with advertising or PR, because whoever is handling your account may not know the difference.

-k.