To not want to work for free?

[chalchalchal]

I have always worked in sales and having had a couple of years of being a SAHM, am trying to look for a new sales role.

However I am absolutely astounded at the cheek of some companies and the fact that they all seem to want either free labour, or they want the moon on a stick and aren't prepared to pay for it.

Examples include:

The company that want all new staff to work for free initially and get 20 sales (telesales work). Once you've got the 20 sales you start getting an hourly rate and commission, but you never get payment for those initial 20 sales. It is selling a relatively niche high cost product, and I've calculated that it could possibly take a month of working full time to get those sales.

The company that are prepared to pay commission only, yet still want applicants to go through a huge application process (3 interviews), and a 3 day training programme. All this for no guarantee of any actual earnings!

Another company that is prepared to again only pay on a commission only basis, yet employees are expected to do a series of reports at the end of each week, taking 2 or 3 hours, again for free!

AIBU or is this how things work now? I think it's bloody cheeky

Workers pay and conditions have been eroded quite substantially over the past few years.

Yanbu op. Working for free is called charity work!!

It makes me wonder whether these 'companies' (and I use that term loosely) just flit from free employee to free employee to avoid actually paying anyone anything.

Welcome back to The Work house place. Depressing, isn't it ?

Very fucking depressing, yes!

I hate looking at job adverts.

'We require someone with EXCELLENT X skills and to have 3 years experience in X and X. The ideal applicant will have managed previously, and should be able to cope with the high demand and pressures of the job. We will expect the successful applicant to be able to work at short notice, including nights and weekends. Must have own vehicle: responsibilities include

[insert massively long list with lots of responsibility]'.

Pay: £7ph

When I was job searching I was disgusted at what people were asking for, for such little pay. Ridiculous but they can afford to now because there's people willing to do it, and there will be more soon..

YANBU. The job I have now is not much more than minimum wage but the responsibilities I have are ridiculous.

I am in sales, Account Director in IT/Comms sales. What kind of sales role are looking for as my email is full of £30-£40K roles from agencies I registered with when looking for a role before, happy to forward some of them to you if you PM me?

YANBU - employee rights and work conditions seem to be getting lower by the year. :(

YANBU I'm on maternity leave at the moment but have been thinking about everything I do - alot of which isn't on my job description and new things I'll be doing when I return and for what I get paid the amount of responsibility is ridiculous!

I've actually made an appointment with the main boss to point this out discuss it but appreciate this may not be an option for everyone.

Those sorts of companies do tend to pop up with increasing regularity when there is an ongoing financial crisis.

They're a total ripoff. You will see no money.

YANBU. Naturally those offering this "work" won't be working for nothing themselves, will they? And after they've worked out who's prepared to be taken advantage of, are they really going to treat you a lot better once you've jumped through the first few hoops? People working for free are also undercutting other people who expect to be paid for their work, so it helps no-one (except those getting free labour!)

I think some work before any pay is quite common practice in performance-based-pay jobs (like sales). Normal from what I hear. And everyone I know (almost) puts in extra unpaid hours in whatever job.

Not saying it's good, but so common as to be standard practice, yes.

I've been in sales for almost my whole career ( 20 years) and I have never worked for free or commission only.
I am now self employed so I don't know if things have changed a lot in the last few years .

I worked in sales where we did get and hourly wage but if you didn't hit sales targets you had your hours cut. So they then told people they were allowed to come in and work shifts for free to up their sales, but because they didn't force anyone to do this they didn't understand why it was an issue... So in order to keep your job you had to meet the unrealistic targets and they could only really be achieved by working a lot of hours for no wage!

It's an employers market. Unless you want to be unemployed you have to keep your mouth shut.

Lots of job adverts along the lines of: The applicant will have a degree in a relevant subject at 2:1 or above. At least 10 years experience in a related field plus big list of further requirements salary meets NMW.

This is why I know I'll never become a proper person.