The Perils of Job Hunting

Finding a job after you've hit bottom due to drugs and/or alcohol can be a daunting task!  Finding decent jobs in this market - for anyone! - is tough enough nowadays, and if you've hit bottom due to addiction, it's even harder!

Yet the basics are the same for all of us, recovering from addiction or just suffering a bit of bad luck.  Or for that matter, those just starting out in life!

This article is not then about the specifics of resume writing, interviewing and such.  At the Liahona Home, we do provide those services for those who are staying with us, but this is more about one of the saddest pitfalls that can side-track the young, the inexperienced, or the desperate.  Or especially the alcoholic/addict trying to get back on track, and looking for the short-cut to it.

And that pitfall is when the job is not really a job!  There are several ways this can happen.  But I'm going to cover just the one called Multi-Level Marketing or MLM.  Learn of this, and do not be taken by it, or have your real job searches delayed by it.

First, they are basically the traditional "Pyramid Schemes" like Amway (or whatever name they are under now) or Herbalife (or whatever name they are under now) or any like them.  A pyramid scheme is one that relies upon you getting others to sell, rather than sell the product yourself, and at the same time, those new sellers make money by getting others to sell under them, moreso than the actual selling of product.  They call it "building your down line", but it really means, "Find more suckers".

Bear in mind, you're the down line of the person offering this to you, so the first person you'll recruit as a sucker is - yourself!

Signs that you've come across one of these scams is when they aren't telling you the company name up front, or the minimal qualifications are just too minimal or when the compensation seems unrealistic for the work desired.  Or all of that.  Additionally, this scam will want you to pay a given amount of money to them first, for a "starter kit" or "deposit" or "information package" or any other name.

How you avoid this is by realizing that besides a State required license or a work uniform deposit, you NEVER pay to work!  And that even in those two situations most companies will simply deduct that cost out of your first check, thus costing you nothing up front.  Pyramid schemes, which are Multi-Level Marketing schemes, will have you pay up front, because if they relied upon taking it out of your first check, they'd never get paid! 


Don't believe me?  Ask your recruiter to spot you the "initial investment" or the "starter kit fee".  And that you'll pay them back after all that great money you earn so quickly, like they assure you that you will.  When they hem and haw, that tells the tale.

Second, Multi-Level Marketing schemes (MLM), under thousands of names, are just the sanitized version of Pyramid Schemes.  They rely on the same things pyramid schemes rely upon, but with a twist.  They go to greater lengths to have a surface legitimacy, but do so by leaning heavily on your initial first wave (and most often last wave) of sales. 

Signs that you've come across one of these scams is where there is still the initial payment for your "starter kit" or "inventory", still the same lack of qualifications needed and still the same over-compensation claimed, and they advise you (in unpaid training or by emailed instructions) to solicit all of your family, friends, and everyone you know at any club, campus, church or corporation you have any relation to first. 

How you avoid this is so-called "job" is by realizing that they gain "customers" by the supposed employment offer!  You are buying their products from them, and at that point, they've won!  You were the customer!  If you can sell the products to those who will buy from you only out of love and social pressure, that's fine, but no concern of theirs.  If you can get one of your family, friends or acquaintances to sign up for this "opportunity", that's all the better, because that - and only that - is another actual customer!  The prime customers are not then those you are selling product to, but you and anyone else you fool into this "opportunity".

Thirdly, there's the "Legit Sales Job" ruse, again under thousands of names.  If Pyramid schemes like to package themselves as MLM, then MLM likes to dress up as a "legit sales job".  They wish to play off the fact that insurance sales and real estate sales are "legit", and involve some licensing or schooling money up front, therefore, the MLM must be legit, too!

Signs that you've come across one of these scams is where little or no experience is required, no real training in the product is offered, and the compensation claimed is unrealistic.  Real estate sales and insurance sales will usually require much training, often times from accredited agencies, and with a license involved.  Even in the auto world a great deal of past experience and often times being bonded is required.  

How you avoid this pretend job is by realizing that they have hit upon the fact that they can risk extending to you some limited amount of small ticket inventory that they long ago paid some clearance price for, and see if you can sell it for them.  Your "compensation" will come out of the profit, and will be a small percent of that profit.  Thus they can't lose - they get the product back if you can't sell it - and you can't win, as the amount of product that you'd need to sell per day is far too much to be realistic.  Unless you get "distributors" under you - see "down line"!

Fourthly, in all of the above cases, simple "due diligence" or research is not enough.  All such companies are great at gaming the system, and will have shills online write glowing reviews of how great the company is and how wonderful an opportunity this is.  They will go even further, and have shills write supposed "exposes" on scams, and that fake site will pretend to "investigate" the company, and then - surprise! - find that this company is legit, while all it's competitors are scams! 

They'll also game the system with the BBB by changing their incorporated status a lot.  New corporate names, "doing business as", multiple corporate names, re-incorporating, all these tricks keep their company new and fresh and with a cleaner rating.  They also know how to send in false reports to the BBB and other watchdog agencies, and to even send in complaints themselves (about themselves!) so as to "correct" them to the "customer's" satisfaction at once.  Remember, it's not the number of complaints that count, but what percent were "resolved to customer's satisfaction".  If they receive 10 real complaints that they are scammers, but submit 90 false complaints that they then "resolve", then they've a 90% customer satisfaction rate, don't they?

They also have the sneakiest weapon of all - their past victims.  Sometimes these victims were never victims, and enjoy trying to trick family, friends and acquaintances into something so as to line their own pockets.  But much more often, the victims started as victims, and now feel pretty stupid, and can only validate themselves and grow a bit of their self-esteem back (not to mention growing a bit of their losses back) by tricking others they know as they themselves were tricked. 

Thus Bob from your alma mater, or your cousin Jane, or your Manager's wife, or Frank from your gym aren't really approaching you because they "heard you were in trouble and want to help", but really because they know that "the more people I run this by, the greater the odds are that one will fall for it".


If all they can do is sell you some over-priced product, fine.  But they mainly want to sell you on YOU selling others, on YOU becoming part of the "down line"!

How you avoid all this is by knowing one simple thing - "If it sounds too good to be true, it is."

Fifthly, some might say, "But I know good people who do this, and succeed at it!  Like my friend who sells Avon (or Mary Kay, Amway, Herbalife, Nutri...and so on.)!"

There are some people, and the key word is "some", who can by lots of effort, a bit of talent, and mostly "connections/friendships" and "social status", gain a given segment of a local market such that it works well enough for them.  Picture the Manager's wife who sells all the wives of the employees in her husband's company their make up, or the popular guy at some fitness club who has pressured his buddies there and at work into getting all their GNC type supplies through him for a "discount". 

They may be making little more than some pin money, subsidized by a real job (theirs or their spouses) or they've maybe gone whole hog and in an exception that can only be described (literally) as "one in a million" have enough "down line" sales staff, who themselves have down line sales staff, that they can make the big bucks that everyone has been told is "possible".

Mostly they'll be the first type.  99 times out of a 100 they'll just be the first type.  Just selling to their social circle and a bit of their extended social circle, and by being personable enough and selling products that are at least average, can - by buying in bulk - give others just good enough a deal to make it worth their while, and still get a bit of profit for themselves.  Even that takes FAR more effort than you can imagine, and involves a good deal of high pressure tactics that any of them would flat out deny.

Yet "high pressure", while coming in many forms, does include "presuming off of personal relationships".  And while it can be any one at the club or the church or the office, it's far more often "the Manager's wife" than "the custodian's wife" that is going to succeed at this, EVEN if both are equally talented in sales.  Think hard on that one, and remember why you didn't like it when your boss at your last job tried to get you to buy some raffle tickets or candy bars from his kid.

Please read this next part very carefully:

There are legitimate sales jobs.  But you are NOT a salesman, or you'd not be considering any of the above, you'd know better.  And if you are still thinking, "Yes, I am a salesman!" or "I could be a salesman, how hard could it be?" or "I could work sales, everyone had to start somewhere!" then know that you've overlooked something.  And that is that if you're so great a salesman, you should get a real sales job, like shooting for your real estate license, or trying your hand at a used car lot. 

"But how do I 'try my hand' at a Used Car lot?" you might ask?  Easy.  Go down to one, talk to the owner of it, and persuade him to let you spend the afternoon selling his cars.  You pay him nothing up front, and he pays you only 25% of what the usual commission would be, but if you succeed, he lets you do it again tomorrow for full commission. 

Don't think you can persuade a random used car dealer to let you do that?

No?  Then you're NOT a salesman!  For the first thing any real sales person sells is himself.  If you can sell yourself, you can sell any product.  Why do you think that the above scam sales jobs focus so strenuously on family and friends?  Because they know you have no hope of making any where near enough cold call sales to strangers!

And if you answered, "Yes, I could persuade that car dealer!", then go and sell those cars!  That's a bona fide job, you won't be "buying the first car" up front, you won't need to have "down line" sales staff, you won't have to change company names every year or write fake reviews.  You'll simply sell actual products to people who need them, people who you don't even know, so you won't be presuming on any relationship.

There are many other real sales jobs.  Often times with base pay and other ways of making sure you are secure day in and day out.  Pick any of them, from Pest Control to Security Systems.  But avoid like the plague the ones listed above, where there are nothing but suckers, and the first sucker sought is YOU!