Did I just got catfished by an insurance company?
I applied for an admin role on an online recruitment website, but it didn’t state the company that was hiring. I applied for it in the morning, and I received a message for an interview in the afternoon.
The person that contacted me give me an address for the interview, but seemed to avoid giving me the name of his company. I tried to Google online but there was no indication of what company that resides in that address. I had to ask him and he said his company’s name. It was literally just a typical English first name and a Chinese surname plus the word “Organisation” at the back. I was confused but I still went for the interview because I didn’t know what kind of company it was back then.
I entered his office and then he started the interview. He just gave me a brief job description of the admin role I applied. And then he asked me if all the admin roles were filled up, there will be only the sales role. He continued and asked if I would mind hearing about the sales role. I thought that since I am already here, no harm in listening to the job description of the other role available. And then he continued and told me that the sales role is an insurance agent and proceeded to talk about how much insurance agents earn and how much commission (5-digits monthly) they earn once they reached a certain level for the next 30-45 mins. I was kinda irritated because if he asked me if I mind being an insurance agent at the start, I would have say yes to his recruitment speech. When he finished up and asked if I would mind being an insurance agent, I said no, thinking that that would make me look nice and maybe increase my chances of getting the admin role.
And when I make my way out of his office, I saw his name card. His “organisation” was literally just a small department or subsidiary of a huge insurance company in Singapore that everyone knows. He told me he would get back to me in a few days’ time to inform me if I have received the role.
He texted me back after a few days to say all admin roles are taken, and if I would want to take the insurance agent role. I replied kindly that I have changed my mind and would not like to take the insurance agent role. He never replied back. Now thinking back, the way he spent so little time talking about the admin role and spent 30-45 mins talking about the agent role makes me think that he never had the admin role in the first place.
Are the finance/insurance industry so short-handed that they don’t mind shooting their shot at people who clearly didn’t have the goal of doing an insurance job? They don’t mind wasting their time trying to recruit people who didn’t come in with the mindset of joining the insurance sales role? Was it really just a bunch of coincidences where they were actually hiring admins but they were all filled or were they trying to recruit me for an insurance sales job from the get-go?