Has anyone ever heard of Meltwater News? They want me to interview with them and it sounds like a scam.?

Question

Has anyone ever heard of Meltwater News? They want me to interview with them and it sounds like a scam.?

Answer 1

I worked for them previously and the previous post was correct. they put you in a room with a bunch of overqualified people for cold calling. I would also ask how many cold calls their are and how leads are found.



The turnover is extremely high and the pay structure is more than misleading.



Does anyone have any ideas for me to get this information out to people before they make the same mistake as i did and get caught up in this scam?



Thanks,

Eric



This program will not let me publish another question, so I will have to answer all questions in this format.



I worked there for 3 months and quit after 50% (4) of the people I had started with also left. I went through a group interiew and did extremely well. I went to a good college, but was interviewing with kids at Stanford, UCLA... So you can imagine my excitement when I got a job offer. So excited, I decided to overlook the lack of hard information about the company online.



My first day started and I could not be more upset when I walked into a room with 10 chairs and 10 phones.



All I can reccommend is that if you decide to do the interview and you do get a offer, ask to do one day in the office to see it.



Also I would ask these specific questions for further insight into their vague "management trainee position"



What are my daily roles?



Could you explain how an average day would go?



Where do I get leads?



If I do get promoted to a manager, how are my duties different?



Can you explain in detail the pay structure (it is extremely confusing)?



With that said, the job did seem to suit some people, however the majority of us left within 3-4 months.



I would really like to express these concerns on a website, however I am not very technically inclined/computer saavy, so others do not go through the same process as me.



Also do not be fooled when there are other employees in on the interview, they re just so stoked to take a day off and get more people in, because the more roudiness the easier it is to make phone calls and take the pressure off of individuals.



Please let me know if you have any more questions and I would be glad to answer them.

Answer 2

I worked for Meltwater also and found it to be not suited for me. I feel dumb responding to this, because I could have been more sceptical than I originally was. I was just so excited to get the job after i felt I beat out 20 kids (from group interviews). This job is not for everyone, I did see some kids that did extremely well, however I had a tough time cold calling because I hated to bother people with telephone calls everyday. If anyone tells you this is not cold calling, they are lying. I suggest what Eric said above, ask to do a day befor eyou agree to anything. The pay structure is very decieving and it was not nearly as good an opportunity as the meltwater staff made it out to be.



If you search their name on google, all you see is hundreds of pages of job openings nd all that bs, not much solid info. This question is ending in like 10 hours but I would like (similiar to Eric) to put up a site that tells people about the exxaggeration of this opportunity when you interview.

Answer 3

Meltwater News

Answer 4

Read the response of Eric, it is dead on. I used to work at MW also.



Once I got there, within the first week I felt completely duped and like they had essentially sold me on the position.



This is a full on sales position, even as a manager you sell while managing other sales people.



Work hours are at least 50 a week and more if you are new and there is no overtime pay and no benefits for 90 days. You are expected to work at home, even if it is not a requirement.



This is a good position if you are an extroverted super enthusiastic person fresh out of college. The majority of people that work there are super nice and fun and there is the potential to make good money if you are a great sales person and find quality leads, which takes a lot of work.



If you are looking for a non sales position with quality training, variety, high pay right of the bat and low stress this is not the place.



If you love cold calling, have a strong personality and are looking for sales experience in fun stressful environment this could be for you.



If you are looking for anything other than sales experience, I would find an alternative to save both Meltwater and yourself the time.



Lesson: What sounds too good to be true, is probably not true.



Good luck.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.



RE:

Has anyone ever heard of Meltwater News? They want me to interview with them and it sounds like a scam.?

Answer 6

I just got a call from them, I let it go to voicemail since it was long distance and I didn't want to pick up until I knew who it was. Anyways, I applied for the Los Angeles International Management Trainee program. Is that the same program you guys are talking about? I'm in the bay area so I would hate to go down there to interview and find out the whole thing is cold calling for the first 6-9 months..can anyone provide more details please!!





Well after reading all these responses, I'm not going to bother calling them back. Too bad, but it really does seem like a scam!

Answer 7

I've been looking for jobs for quite a while now and I stumbled across the meltwater news position and sent in my resume. They called me back later that night, which seemed pretty quick. I talked to this guy, who is based in Florida, about the position but he failed to give me any specifics on what the actual duties are. In my experience, I have found out that some of these "Manager Training Programs" are ways to get recent college grads to do crappy work for lower pay. Enterprise rent a car has a "Manager Training Program" that was very eager to hire me, but after some research I realized I would be washing cars and picking up people for about $10.45/hour (with the promise that I would make manager soon). Needless to say I did not call them back. Most of these "scams" share the same features:



1) Vague descriptions of position duties

Instead of saying specifics like you will file papers and conduct business meetings, they will say "great opportunity to use your education" and "work in a growing business environment"



2) The people that call you seem desperate to hire you

I got a call from the Enterprise-Rent-A-Car recruiter and she sounded like she would've come over to my apartment and interviewed me right then if I told her to.



3) There is a large recruiting department for the company

Unless the company is really big, I have realized that a large recruitment effort for a company usually means there are a lot of positions that need to be filled, i.e. lot of people are leaving, i.e high tun over rate, i.e. job sucks



I am also going to meet with Meltwater news and I am hoping

that they are not one of these companies. After reading the position description, I suspect it might be a lot of phone sales for the first 6-9 months. I'm not sure though. Tell me if you find out anything at your interview.

Answer 8

Spoke to the one of the guys in Miami. Nice...but if he is performing cold sales calls, he still needs work in his tactics because I wasn't completely sold on the opportunity. He kept repeating "that's a good question" when I asked some of the questions people mentioned here but he remained vague in many of his answers and stumbled on his words. You could tell he was young....cause I felt old. Also, he didn't like to call the job cold-calling but instead referred it as warm-calling. Still wasn't buying that argument.



The base salary is $36k plus benefits (but I didn't receive specific on those benefits just that employees were well taken care of) and the possibility of earning up to $66k if you are on-target with your sales. As a person who makes more than that I'm just unsure about the job...especially after seeing the advice by people who posted here that used to work there. I also don't like the idea of a mandatory group interview meeting if it's impractical to do so and merely a tactic to dupe folks even more.



If anyone has heard more info, I would love to hear it before I even considered taking the plunge.

Answer 9

I too received a phone call regarding potential employment for Meltwater News this evening. It was an interesting conversation during which time, "its so fun to work here" and "we are looking for driven individuals," were thrown into the conversation repeatedly. This makes me think that they are trying to entice rather than qualify potential candidates. I am interested what others think. I do not want to waste time on a cold call wall job. (Los Angeles)

Answer 10

Their actual media database product is not bad, but they are extremely dishonest. They auto renew clients for a full year at $5,000 without clear warning. It's in the agreement, so my bad for not reading every single line. But I'd stay far, far away from any company that forces clients to stay and pay such a large amount.

Answer 11

I have experience at the other end of Meltwater sales. We do use a vendor to provide media monitoring but Meltwater representatives continue to bug us and it is a hard sell. Finally, I just say no about 10 times and hang up. The next time it will be never call us again ... ever. Also, my experience, or opinion, is that their product is inferior to other similar services.

Answer 12

Now it makes sense. I'm a client, and they always seem like their giving me the hard sell, like some car salesman.

Answer 13

I'm interviewing with them as well, I think it's legit.

Answer 14

Well... go ahead and perform it, then update us :)

Answer 15

very interesting question

Answer 16

Sorry, not sure about this