Complaint Review: CDCCareers.com

This is a business run by Mark Van Sickle, you can find other reports of his past and very similar business by using his name as a keyword on this same site and that should direct you to the history as RMC International.

I had answered an ad placed by CDC on Careerbuilder.com and was contacted by them to come in for an interview. To their credit it was clear that this was not for a job but that it was for a placement service. Almost like a headhunter but with a twist. The original ad stated that there were a few options to pay for the service and one of those was that CDC would get up to 10% of the first year income after a desired position was obtained. This sounded good as it meant that they had motivation to help get you a job. I was very interested and giving up 10% was not bad if it got me placed in a position making $40-50k more a year.

I went in for the first interview which is on the 9th floor of a nice building. My first clue was there were no signs up stating that this was CDC but the receptionist was there and had Mr Van Sickle come meet me in the lobby. I asked him if they had the whole floor for their business and he said that they did. Looking back I am pretty sure that CDC rents an one office on the floor and Mr. Van Sickle may be the only CDC person in the building. At any rate we started the interview and all was well. I was asked to take a personality test and a few other things and then schedule another meeting to discuss how best to 'market' myself to employers currently looking to fill positions. Mr Van Sickle gave me a little background on the company and claimed to have been at this for a "long time" and had a great success rate while at the same time building me up as viable candidate for many of the positions that they have access to. It all sounded good...too good? Home I went and filled out the forms and took the personality test that he had asked me to take.

I went in for the second meeting, still feeling good about things. It was more of the same with Mr Van Sickle bragging about their success rates and telling me how much they could do for me. This included resume work, creating a personal website to market myself, interview practice with his crack team of people who were to work diligently on my behalf until I found a position that I wanted to accept. And then they were to help in negotiating a contract for that new position.

At the end of this meeting he then proceeded to place a cost sheet in front of me. Gone was the 10% of first year salary and now the cost was $6,900.00. There were some other slightly cheaper options but if I really wanted them to get me going it was the 7k of which 2k was due 45 days after accepting a position of my choice. That meant giving them $4,900 now. There was also an addition $995 for the web portfolio bringing the actual total to just under 8k. Now my wheels were turning for sure and he had some long-winded reason why the 10% was not an option which I really didn't understand, possible because I was so floored by the cost that he just dropped on me.

I told him that I would think about it.

I got home and started doing some research on line. In looking at the CO Sec of State website and doing some tracking I found out that CDC was registered on 06/07/2010 and is based in WY. If you dig in the records you can find an address change from Aurora CO to the Cheyenne WY address. This is speculation on my part but my guess is that Mr Van Sickle does not want anyone who has been ripped off to be able to locate him and he may have slipped up and put his personal address on the initial form and then soon changed it to a WY address. A search on Therese M Hoard who is listed on the documents yields that she is part of WY Corporate Services which helps companies set up in WY for tax purposes etc. Who knows what the real deal is with all of that weather it is for tax purposes or to keep access to Mr. Van Sickle hard to get.

At any rate I gave up on CDC in hurry never having paid them anything. That said Mark did seem to have some valuable knowledge of the career market and I would recommend stopping in to see what he has to say. It is after all...free as long as you don't get sucked in. I would guess that there are a few people that he has helped to land a job but this is truly secondary to collecting your money up front. I seriously doubt that he has a staff of more than 2 or 3 people even though he tried to tell me that there were multiple offices around the country and tried to make it sound as if there were many people on the staff of CDC.

Just another note of caution, I ran across a company called EPBM Execusearch.com which also seems to be called S.E.T. and spoke to a Glenn Scott and a Brett Hoye. This seems to be the same type of 'business model' as CDC. I did not spend much time talking to these guys but when asked Mr. Scott about the name changes which include the two already listed as well as Mckenzie Scott or ITS he was very quick to claim that they were not at all affiliated and when pressed ended the conversation. There is a whole other day of research if you choose to look into those compaies.

But back to CDC. In looking at the past complaints against the former name (RMC International) it appears that Mr. Van Sickle reads this board and has a canned response that he has never dealt with (insert name here) from (insert place here) and to boot he will even add that his unscrupulous competition (S.E.T. as it is) is behind the post. I agree that a real name here would add a little credability but I would rather Mr. Van Sickle not come looking for me when his latest incarnation falls apart and he is out looking for a job like I am. If after reading this you feel compelled to use CDC I wish you the best of luck. As a posted from the RMC board said he is not commiting a crime because you sign a contract and in it there is no guarantee of performance.

At the end of the day I wish that CDC had been a viable option as it sounded like they were on to something but as they say...If it sounds too good....