They begin by utilizing staffing agencies. They schedule a day to bring in 40 people from all the staffing agenciess and perform two group "interviews". I was part of one of these interviews. This is what happened:
Jack led the group interview. He began by telling us a little about the job and how the fund raiser worked. Jack had us do several “exercises”; The first one was for us to tell him a little about ourselves. The second exercise was to write a script es based on what he just told us about the job we would be doing, if hired. Then he mentioned that some people had received a copy of their cold calling script already but wanted us to read our script.
The guy sitting to the left of me had worked there 2 years before so he was skipped from reading his. Four or five other people read their script that was 3 sentences long and their third sentence was a closing sentence.
Lots of different staffing agencies sent people to this “interview” and I’m wondering if of those people somehow knew what the requirements would be before they got there!
Jack told my staffing company I would be “near the top” of the next hiring interview. They know I would already know what the requirements are and if a staffing agency would have handed me the script, of course I’d have plenty of time to come up with a script that closes in the third sentence and the MD Association knows this. I’ve done this before for a company I already work for. I would have a script written before I got there.
If anyone was hired from my staffing agency they were either “blind sided” like I was or already somehow knew the requirements to pass their “test”. I think their motivation of having a group interview is to glean the very few that can “hit the ground running”! So both the staffing company's time and my time and transportation were wasted.
Do I think I would pass their "test"? Yes. Do I think I'll get hired or even asked back to another group interview? Probably not. More importantly, would I want to go back? This doesn't do a lot for the association's good name!