My Job Interview With America Online

Technical support or confederacy of dunces;
Just where does America Online find its technical support people?

by "Guy Fawkes"

When I noticed an advertisement in the help wanted section of The Dallas Morning News, I decided to find out, especially since it offered free America Online with unlimited usage.

My first hint that the hiring process reflected AOLs allegedly shoddy standards was a line that read: "If you can breeze through our spelling and dictation tests, your the person were seeking." Obviously their tests did not include being able to differentiate the possessive word your, which they inappropriately used in the ad, from the contraction you're, which signifies "you are," which was the word they should have used. This was my first hint of things to come.

When I dialed the number listed in the advertisement, I learned that America Online contracts out its needs to Advanced Telemarketing Corporation, otherwise known as ATC, located in Irving, Texas. The person on the other end invited me in for an interview and requested that I "dress professional" and asked that I not bring any children along to the interview.

Already this made me question the caliber of a company that feels obliged to remind applicants to "dress professional" before attending an interview and considers it necessary to warn against bringing children, something no person with a modicum of common sense would do. What type of people were they accustomed to interviewing?

Well, I would soon find out.

When I stepped into their personnel department I found a crowded atmosphere reminiscent of an immigration office, or judging by the applicant pool, a food stamp distribution site. Children? I was surprised that none of the applicants had brought farm animals.

One puzzled jobseeker, dressed in slacks and an open shirt without a tie, could not figure out how to take the typing test. He moved from computer booth to computer booth, thinking they were all broken. When I informed him he simply had to use the mouse to move the pointer on the screen and click on the BEGIN TEST icon, he asked me what a mouse was. Once I showed he breezed through the typing test at an astonishing 18 words per minute. Even though the advertisement stated that 25 words per minute was the minimum, a supportive personnel administrator assured him that he was probably nervous and that he could move on to the next part of the test, reading a page of a telephone sales spiel and a list of words.

Once I completed these steps along with a typing and spelling test, I was given directions to another location and handed my application, along with the interviewer's confidential evaluation form, and told to present them to the personnel office at the main location. Of course they took the precaution to fold the entire package in half and staple it shut to protect it from my prying eyes. So as soon as I got out to my car, I removed the staple and opened it up, only to see my responses rated for questions I was never asked in the almost nonexistant interview like:

Although I was never asked any of these questions, my psychic interviewer gave me a 3 for each one on the confidential interview form.

After I photocopied my application and evaluation and restapled it closed, I drove to the other personnel office near the training site, which proved to be equally as crowded as the first. Here I was called into a room with five other people for a "group interview." No real interviewing took place. The sole question directed at me consisted of "Have you ever used Windows?"

The woman from personnel informed us that they had just secured a larger contract with AOL. Although they now had 150 people handling customer service for AOL, their contract called for 400 within the next few weeks. At that point we were informed that the training began tomorrow and lasted for eight straight days, with a training salary of a generous $5.00 per hour.

But wait, I asked myself, didn't they have to pay us overtime if we worked more than 40 hours a week? After a week of training if we passed a test, we would be hired at the rate of $7.00 per hour. At this point we were informed we could all have a job if we wanted one. Bear in mind this was only a day after I filled out the application for employment, which I was given to take with me for the second interview. So they were hiring people without even verifying references, education, or work experience. Sounds like AOL quality to me, but I have to wonder if the AOL executives who contracted with ATC to provide technical support people realized that ATC would not only employ cattle call recruiting methods, but would also hire the whole damn herd.

Being smart job seekers, we all said yes and were given a tour of the cavernous relay room which we would be working in. Not a wrist rest, mouse pad or any other piece of ergonomic equipment was visible in a 200 seat room. Hmmm, didn't I just sign something that acknowledged that ATC did not subscribe to the Texas State Workers Compensation Board and that any medical care would have to come from ATC's network of approved doctors, care that would end when the employee left the company? So if I got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from being available the mandated 24 hours a day seven days a week as I agreed on another release, I'd be S.O.L.

Suddenly, all the free AOL time in the world didn't matter.

While I originally envisioned myself doing an Undercover At America Online piece, I now realized that I would never get to see the inside of the America Online headquarters and would be little more than a galley slave.

So it appears that America Online has awarded a massive contract to a third party to provide customer service without realizing how slipshod that third party's hiring practices were or that the third party did not have the personnel on hand to fulfill the requirements of the contract. Could AOL actually be this careless? Why not? Why should America Online treat its business interactions any differently than it treats its customers?