Would you go for this?

[lettuce]

I have recently been offered this oppportunity and I would love some feedback and advise on wether this is a good deal or not:
There's a new business being set up at the moment which aims to bring together people looking for new jobs, and employers looking for new people,via video CVs. It would kind of work like a video dating agency, where anybody looking to change jobs presents themselves on a video which prospective employers can view.
My job would be to see the job hunters and prepare their video and CV.This would be on a self-employed basis where I would be paid £80 per candidate, the company will provide the video equipment,promotions material etc.
Now I would love to do this job, my problem is that they ask for £1495 start up fee which will have to be paid after training is completed.The fee covers the training, equipment and exclusive area rights.
This fee at the moment is a special rate because they are only just starting this business, it will go up to nearly £3000 once the business is up and running.
They think that I could expect to earn around £20000 annually working part-time.
I have no idea what the going rate is for this kind of thing, so if anybody has any experience in something like this I would love to hear from you.

bump

Nope. I'd NEVER take a 'job opportunity' that asked me to front that amount of money before I start.

Sounds like a major con to me.

hi expat
i can see why you would think it's a scam, I should have said in my original post that I am sure it isn't a con. They have actually got a website up for the business and I have spoken to the woman a few times myself. Also they are quite local to me and I have all their details.
Take it that it isn't a con - does it sound reasonable to you?

Highly risky. I have done a lot of recruitment in the past and would not dream of looking at videos. I have never worked anywhere that has the capability to play videos.

In any case it is old technology - what about DVDs? I could play those on my office PC.

The company would need to find (a) employees willing to be filmed and (b) employers willing to look at videos. Why would they do that when conventional recruitment often works very well? The video would lead to a first interview, so all it is doing is replacing the CV with something that gives less detail but a much better visual impression of the candidate. Fine for beautiful people, but what about the rest of us? How long would the video be? Most employers make up their minds about CVs within a minute, and you can get through a pile of CVs quickly. Not so easy for a pile of videos/DVDs.

It might work in certain employment sectors, but looks like a very small niche to me. You need 20 candidates to cover your cost. Do they have to pay? If so, forget it.

Can you talk to other who have already joined?

If you have good answers to my objections, then go ahead. I can always think of problems more quickly than solutions.

It still isn't something I'd go for. I agree w/all the points clerkkent brought up.

Plus, I never go for those 'expect to earn' deals, but then, I'm NOT into sales and 'expect to earn' = sales

Bargepole springs to mind, I recently got in touch with someone who was looking for people to host functions, turned out to be a franchise and they wanted me to buy in.

If it was an established way of recruiting then fair enough, but it is a new idea which personally I don't see being that popular. I would let an investor with lots of cash fund their business.

You have to ask yourself how many people would pay so much to be video'ed and who would be interesting in recruiting using these. I would try to find out how many busineses would consider this benificial when recruiting I would think not many. What level of employee is this targeted at, managers, graduates or directors. How many videos would you have to do to actually earn the £20,000?

If this was something you would be interested in there could be ways for you to do this yourself if it is a viable business.
For example, I was looking at Chocolate fountains, one company sold them and offered free storage cases, free training, startup advice and inclusion on there website directory. All this for the cost of the Fountain. Another company offered a franchise, for Umpteen thousand extra you got a week long course at the other end of the country and a logo'ed apron plus the same as the other one minus the storage cases (they were extra). So for the thousands extra you basicly got an apron and less flexable training.

I meant to add don't be fooled by a professional website and their nice chat. They are probably very genuine about it all but perhaps not realistic about the appeal and earning potential. Plus it is very easy to get a good website up and running.

Decnt businesses don't expect people to pay anything to join them, I absolutely wouldn't touch this with a bargepole either.

Stay away!

don't forget that people like driving instructors have to pay-up too - all those lovely adverts telling you "why not train to be a driving instructor earn XXXXX a month" (from reputable places too).......then you get the stuff through and discover it's going to cost you £3000+ and be quite some time before you actually earn anything.

Having said that - I agree with the others sounds dodgy

Agree with clerkKent that video is a bit dated now - who'd go to the trouble of looking at a video? DVD maybe more viable as a prospective employer could play it on their work PC, but you'd physically have to make the effort to sit down with a TV and a video player and a remote control etc... mmm... I'm not convinced that many employers would give it their time.. wouldn't they rather interview someone face to face??

Its not even that it is dodgy, It just doesn't seem a viable project. I just wouldn't invest this sort of money in an unproven business.

It seems to me that the people setting up the business are not really doing any work - just doing a website, some promo materials etc. Even my 11 yr old can set up a website.

You've then got the hard slog of attracting people to do this, interviewing them and doing the CV and video.

Re: 'exclusive area rights' - if it's a new business, how do they know what the demand will be like?

Seems to be a lot of "business opportunities" like this, I wish I could come up with an idea like this and get other people to do all the work . If you have to put so much effort into it and you think it will work do it yourself.

I'm sure if you have that sort of money to invest you could start your own business. (Does your local maternity ward have a photographer?)

Run a mile. This is either a con or a case of hopeless optimism (and even if it's the latter, they are still expecting you to take the risk, not them). I used to be a boss, recruiting people, and I would never have looked at a video CV. Don't know anyone else who would either.

thanks everyone for your advise, it's pretty much confirmed what I thought as well - that it doesn't seem reasonable to ask for this kind of money for an unproven business, so I think I'm going to pass on this.