Sillygirl777
Houston,#2UPDATE Employee
Thu, February 05, 2009
To whomever felt that they were mislead: I believe that any information that you have provided on this site does violate your contract that YOU signed when YOU agreed to become an employee AFTER reading the employee handbook. I currently am employed with this company and have been for 6 months. That alone should prove that above anything you are just bitter that you could not produce the numbers they required to keep employment. It specifically says in the handbook that there is a quota that must be met. I have never seen them fire anyone who was producing great numbers. This company does not make promises that are unreasonable. All that they ask is that you follow a script and set an appointment. This company states everything up front about what they do. I love the people that I work with and couldnt ask for a better group or women to call my friends. I think that coming on this site and trying to make this company look bad just because you are angry you got fired shows your true character. Instinct Marketing and all of the supervisors continually encourage that you come to work and be positive. This job can be stressful and not everyone can do it. They try to give people the benefit of the doubt and help encourage you alog the way. As far as deceiving people to come into the offices for an appointment, I think it is completely ridiculous of you to claim we are deceitful. Considering you worked there for such a short period of time I can gaurantee that you do not know the full spectrum of prices for the services, nor do you even understand how the services work. Everyone I work with genuinely wants to see all of our clients find love. There is no way we can make the promise of someone finding them, all we do is try to get them to use a different avenue than they have been. Nobody can make someone do something they arent comfortable doing. If you have experience with customer service and can be a good listener then you could be good at this.
C20066
Conroe,#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, December 05, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of singles seek help in their dating lives and find dating frustrating these days. The questions Instinct asks as pre-qualifying questions help to separate quality candidates from those that will not be an asset to the select company clientele. Lets just assume most people don't want to date a felon that had his drivers license revoked and still lives with Mommy. Ok? Companies like Instinct put out the linked ads on other dating sites that might say "christian dating", "mature singles", and pre-screen the people that go to all the trouble of filling out a multiple page profile with their personal information and telephone number. Your job at Instinct is to convince the people who already filled out a profile that they want to take the next step to potentially "solve" their "problem". It's a SALES job. Keep in mind most of these people really DO want to meet someone, they just don't have the self esteem for dating by themselves or they may just have busy lives, or no friends that have other friends to hook them up with, who knows really. My main thought on the subject is that lonely people looking for dates have a need that can be met by a service, many of those Instinct advertises for. But in a market where your selling points are emotional and include flattery, reason, and pressuring, there are bound to be people disappointed by the product and at the very least people that are ashamed to talk to a live person about their insecurities. It can be very tough for someone that is not confident or that is easily discouraged. As for the Houston office: Charles (VP of the company) worked his way to the top. He does show favoritism in the office and need to work on promoting a healthier work environment. This is why many other corporations don't allow management to hang out with associates. Maria, Lauren, and Carissa (a supervisor) have been employed over a year now, and all have friendships with Charles that are not sexual in nature, but definitely cause jealousy and discord among the rest of the marketing agents. What do you think will happen when you put a bunch of women together? Charles is a lonely man at the most. He can be overly playful, but his intentions are only to motivate and cheer up the staff. Prospective employees are told over the phone what the job description is, trained immediately, and started out at $10/hr. This is great pay for NO EXPERIENCE. The promotion scale is based on PERFORMANCE, you make money when you make them money. This is how most sales positions work. You also make commission. My lowest check for a 35 hr work week was 600 something starting, 900 average after 60 days, and top was a pay period I brought home $2,500 for two weeks. If you apply yourself, this can be a very lucrative job for an entry level candidate. No job is perfect, this one came with it's set of stresses and a quota. But it's an awesome opportunity for someone charismatic, friendly, that genuinely likes people. I have so many stories- funny, sad, romantic, and tragic, that my "call list" gave me. I think it's one of those character-enriching experiences, and I look back at the experience as being a mostly positive one. Not everyone will be good at this job.
C20066
Conroe,#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, December 05, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of singles seek help in their dating lives and find dating frustrating these days. The questions Instinct asks as pre-qualifying questions help to separate quality candidates from those that will not be an asset to the select company clientele. Lets just assume most people don't want to date a felon that had his drivers license revoked and still lives with Mommy. Ok? Companies like Instinct put out the linked ads on other dating sites that might say "christian dating", "mature singles", and pre-screen the people that go to all the trouble of filling out a multiple page profile with their personal information and telephone number. Your job at Instinct is to convince the people who already filled out a profile that they want to take the next step to potentially "solve" their "problem". It's a SALES job. Keep in mind most of these people really DO want to meet someone, they just don't have the self esteem for dating by themselves or they may just have busy lives, or no friends that have other friends to hook them up with, who knows really. My main thought on the subject is that lonely people looking for dates have a need that can be met by a service, many of those Instinct advertises for. But in a market where your selling points are emotional and include flattery, reason, and pressuring, there are bound to be people disappointed by the product and at the very least people that are ashamed to talk to a live person about their insecurities. It can be very tough for someone that is not confident or that is easily discouraged. As for the Houston office: Charles (VP of the company) worked his way to the top. He does show favoritism in the office and need to work on promoting a healthier work environment. This is why many other corporations don't allow management to hang out with associates. Maria, Lauren, and Carissa (a supervisor) have been employed over a year now, and all have friendships with Charles that are not sexual in nature, but definitely cause jealousy and discord among the rest of the marketing agents. What do you think will happen when you put a bunch of women together? Charles is a lonely man at the most. He can be overly playful, but his intentions are only to motivate and cheer up the staff. Prospective employees are told over the phone what the job description is, trained immediately, and started out at $10/hr. This is great pay for NO EXPERIENCE. The promotion scale is based on PERFORMANCE, you make money when you make them money. This is how most sales positions work. You also make commission. My lowest check for a 35 hr work week was 600 something starting, 900 average after 60 days, and top was a pay period I brought home $2,500 for two weeks. If you apply yourself, this can be a very lucrative job for an entry level candidate. No job is perfect, this one came with it's set of stresses and a quota. But it's an awesome opportunity for someone charismatic, friendly, that genuinely likes people. I have so many stories- funny, sad, romantic, and tragic, that my "call list" gave me. I think it's one of those character-enriching experiences, and I look back at the experience as being a mostly positive one. Not everyone will be good at this job.
C20066
Conroe,#5UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, December 05, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of singles seek help in their dating lives and find dating frustrating these days. The questions Instinct asks as pre-qualifying questions help to separate quality candidates from those that will not be an asset to the select company clientele. Lets just assume most people don't want to date a felon that had his drivers license revoked and still lives with Mommy. Ok? Companies like Instinct put out the linked ads on other dating sites that might say "christian dating", "mature singles", and pre-screen the people that go to all the trouble of filling out a multiple page profile with their personal information and telephone number. Your job at Instinct is to convince the people who already filled out a profile that they want to take the next step to potentially "solve" their "problem". It's a SALES job. Keep in mind most of these people really DO want to meet someone, they just don't have the self esteem for dating by themselves or they may just have busy lives, or no friends that have other friends to hook them up with, who knows really. My main thought on the subject is that lonely people looking for dates have a need that can be met by a service, many of those Instinct advertises for. But in a market where your selling points are emotional and include flattery, reason, and pressuring, there are bound to be people disappointed by the product and at the very least people that are ashamed to talk to a live person about their insecurities. It can be very tough for someone that is not confident or that is easily discouraged. As for the Houston office: Charles (VP of the company) worked his way to the top. He does show favoritism in the office and need to work on promoting a healthier work environment. This is why many other corporations don't allow management to hang out with associates. Maria, Lauren, and Carissa (a supervisor) have been employed over a year now, and all have friendships with Charles that are not sexual in nature, but definitely cause jealousy and discord among the rest of the marketing agents. What do you think will happen when you put a bunch of women together? Charles is a lonely man at the most. He can be overly playful, but his intentions are only to motivate and cheer up the staff. Prospective employees are told over the phone what the job description is, trained immediately, and started out at $10/hr. This is great pay for NO EXPERIENCE. The promotion scale is based on PERFORMANCE, you make money when you make them money. This is how most sales positions work. You also make commission. My lowest check for a 35 hr work week was 600 something starting, 900 average after 60 days, and top was a pay period I brought home $2,500 for two weeks. If you apply yourself, this can be a very lucrative job for an entry level candidate. No job is perfect, this one came with it's set of stresses and a quota. But it's an awesome opportunity for someone charismatic, friendly, that genuinely likes people. I have so many stories- funny, sad, romantic, and tragic, that my "call list" gave me. I think it's one of those character-enriching experiences, and I look back at the experience as being a mostly positive one. Not everyone will be good at this job.
C20066
Conroe,#6UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, December 05, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of singles seek help in their dating lives and find dating frustrating these days. The questions Instinct asks as pre-qualifying questions help to separate quality candidates from those that will not be an asset to the select company clientele. Lets just assume most people don't want to date a felon that had his drivers license revoked and still lives with Mommy. Ok? Companies like Instinct put out the linked ads on other dating sites that might say "christian dating", "mature singles", and pre-screen the people that go to all the trouble of filling out a multiple page profile with their personal information and telephone number. Your job at Instinct is to convince the people who already filled out a profile that they want to take the next step to potentially "solve" their "problem". It's a SALES job. Keep in mind most of these people really DO want to meet someone, they just don't have the self esteem for dating by themselves or they may just have busy lives, or no friends that have other friends to hook them up with, who knows really. My main thought on the subject is that lonely people looking for dates have a need that can be met by a service, many of those Instinct advertises for. But in a market where your selling points are emotional and include flattery, reason, and pressuring, there are bound to be people disappointed by the product and at the very least people that are ashamed to talk to a live person about their insecurities. It can be very tough for someone that is not confident or that is easily discouraged. As for the Houston office: Charles (VP of the company) worked his way to the top. He does show favoritism in the office and need to work on promoting a healthier work environment. This is why many other corporations don't allow management to hang out with associates. Maria, Lauren, and Carissa (a supervisor) have been employed over a year now, and all have friendships with Charles that are not sexual in nature, but definitely cause jealousy and discord among the rest of the marketing agents. What do you think will happen when you put a bunch of women together? Charles is a lonely man at the most. He can be overly playful, but his intentions are only to motivate and cheer up the staff. Prospective employees are told over the phone what the job description is, trained immediately, and started out at $10/hr. This is great pay for NO EXPERIENCE. The promotion scale is based on PERFORMANCE, you make money when you make them money. This is how most sales positions work. You also make commission. My lowest check for a 35 hr work week was 600 something starting, 900 average after 60 days, and top was a pay period I brought home $2,500 for two weeks. If you apply yourself, this can be a very lucrative job for an entry level candidate. No job is perfect, this one came with it's set of stresses and a quota. But it's an awesome opportunity for someone charismatic, friendly, that genuinely likes people. I have so many stories- funny, sad, romantic, and tragic, that my "call list" gave me. I think it's one of those character-enriching experiences, and I look back at the experience as being a mostly positive one. Not everyone will be good at this job.
Kc5282
Bellaire,#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, July 15, 2008
I am an ex employee of Instinct Marketing, who calls for Great Expectations, MatchMaker and Romance Pros. I was employed for several months and was a top "seller". Here's the real deal, the only man in the Houston office (he runs it) is also the owner of Romance Pros Tucson. It doesn't matter how much money you bring in. They have girls there that never bring in a single sell, then why are they still employed there? Because Charles likes to be surrounded by pretty girls, most of which are 18-21. If you are over 21, then you have to dress slutty and flirt with him to keep your job. When I left, there were approx 25 girls employed, and 4 were 'over weight', 2 of those always had their breasts hanging out, one was pregnant and had her breasts hanging out and the other one left, after talking to Liz, crying like a baby and never came back. All of the other girls look like they should be working at Hooters or Colorado(a strip club). As far as income, they guarantee you 12 per hour after 90 days, then they find ways around it. The only way to excel here is to sleep with Charles, isn't that right Maria, Lauren, and Carissa? Any one that gets a call from them, say these exact words... "TAKE ME OFF YOUR CALLING LIST" If you say anything else, they will keep calling you. Even if you say "erase my profile" or delete my number", they will keep calling. We actually were penalized for putting too many people on the Do Not Call List. And whatever you do, DO NOT go into any of their offices for an "interview" with a "Relationship Specialist", They are nothing more than average Joe's looking to make a fat commission off you pain. You are better off using Plenty of Fish, and that's free. Any one applying to this job, run away while you still can, don't let them sucker you in. Good Luck to you all!!!
Christina
Houston,#8UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, April 28, 2008
I was fired for not making quota... which is totally understandable. I also found the job on Craig's List and knew exactly what I was getting in to. They told me all of the job duties. And a lot of the people I talked to didn't remember filling out the profiles but they were from a long time ago the dialer holds profiles for a long, long time. Every single CURRENT lead I called remembered filling out a profile. We weren't scamming anyone. It was a very fair job.
Carrie
Cypress,#9UPDATE Employee
Tue, April 01, 2008
I also responded to an ad on Craigslist for the job, but not only was the person answering the phone very nice, but they told me exactly what the position was for and the responsibilities right over the phone, before I even agreed to come in. When I came in for my interview they explained to me in detail exactly what the job is and in training they taught me how to talk to people over the phone and how to help them overcome their fears and nervousness about dating. It's not a scam at all. People knowingly fill out a singles profile, it is sent to us, and we call them to go over the information and screen them. I've been here for over 30 days now and I have to say that in my opinion the only reason someone would get fired before that 30 days was up was if they weren't capable to do the job they were hired to do. Even if that is the case the supervisors tell all employees in training that they want to help all of their employees improve, so it would have to be someone who really didn't make any sort of effort at all, which I have to say is impressively lazy. All in all, so far it's been a really great place to work and I'm glad to be part of a great team. :)