Vector Marketing CutCo is Sexist and Scammy, Canton, New York

Two summers ago, when I had just finished my freshman year of college, I was home for vacation and was desperately seeking employment. Canton, NY is an incredibly small town, and there weren't a lot of options. One day, I was reading the help wanted ads in the newspaper, and I came across an ad for Vector Marketing--it was very vague and advertised a starting wage of 18 dollars an hour for a sales job. I was a little wary, but gave them a call out of desperation.

They were fairly nice over the phone, though they did not provide me with more information about their company, but instead asked me to come in for an interview. Between that phone call and the interview, I googled them and realized that there was a lot of testimony about the scammy nature of this company. So, I guess I went in to the interview with the notion that it was likely a scam, but I wanted to keep an open mind.

The first red flag upon entering the building was that I knew the company had been there less than a year, since I was familiar with the building, and my neighbor's company had been in the same space less than a year prior. So, this wasn't an established company in our town.

Anyway, I went in and was greeted by a manager who looked like he was about 15 years old--braces, acne, young looking features. Whatever, I thought, he might just be a really young-looking adult, or some kind of child marketing prodigy. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

The interview was a "group interview" with me, the manager, and two young guys also applying for the job. The interview as basically just a sales pitch. The guy pulled out the set of knives we were supposed to be selling (this is the first time the company actually revealed their product, btw) and began to demonstrate with them. First, he gave each of the guys knives--clearly very sharp knives--without cautioning them against cutting themselves. Then, he gave me, the only woman, a pie server thing, clearly not sharp at all, and says "Now be careful with that, honey, it's sharp" Right. Ignoring that, I continued listening to his sales pitch/"interview." He then got out a fishing knife and, looking directly at me, said "Now, I know you girls don't like fishing, but this knife would be used to de-bone the fish" What? After putting up with more blatantly sexist comments from this guy, he asked us each to come in to his office separately. When it was my turn, he asked me if I was over 18 and a US citizen. When I said yes, he held out his hand and was like "Welcome to the team!" Wait, what? You don't know anything about me. I could be a crazy psychopath and you're about to give me knives. I stammered something about how I was going to have to think it over, and left. I never called them back, and luckily, they never tried to contact me. The next time I was home for another vacation, I noticed that the company was no longer located in the same building--I don't know if they left completely or simply moved to another building in town, but they certainly didn't stay in the same place for long.

From what I garnered from this interview, the only way that you could possibly earn money from working at this company is if you knew a ton of people who don't mind dropping 800 bucks on poor-quality knife sets, which I certainly don't. They make you pay for your demonstration set out of pocket, and you have to find all of your clients yourself. If you don't sell knives, you don't get paid. I definitely dodged a bullet by not working for this company, and I would advise anyone else to do the same.