Car Buyers Guide

Pistol_Pete

I applied for a job with Car Buyers Guide in Sandyford Industrial Estate and I was wondering if anyone here has ever worked there/know anyone that has worked there and if so what are their opinions on the place?
Thanks

Otis Driftwood

I took a job with them and lasted a week.It was seriously the worst job Ive ever had.The targets are impossible to reach,they are constantly on your back and the training was ridiculously poor.

I was chatting to one of the girls that had been there 3 weeks and in that period of time 8 people started and quit.

BigPhil

I have never worked there but a friend of mine did and said you would be better off packing bags in Dunnes........it's that bad!

He said that the parent company is called Page 7 Media and they have a couple of different companies on the same floor but the management structure is the worst that he has ever experienced in his life.

Duffy's Circus is better run apparently!

ogriofa

They have had ads online for sales people for as long as I can remember. High turnover of staff is a real sign of a poor employer.

connundrum

I lasted 5 weeks there.

It was when I were a young lad, all innocent and shit. The job was actually advertised as 'Marketing Exec', but that is neither here nor there.

High pressure selling, you'd have to call 100+ potential customers and turn them into 10 sales per day. Its fairly soul destroying stuff, and from what I could see the people that stayed longest were people who could turn their souls off i.e. get €100 off an old man who thought you were selling him a new hip.

But, a job is a job. I used my 5 weeks of experience to get my next sales job, which then turned into a sales manager job so..

LOL.

I worked here before during college on a part time basis.

I knew I was signing up to a ****ing joke of a company when they started telling me in the interview how the sales techniques I would learn working there would help me pick up women in club 92.

It was a complete joke. I wasn't nervous or afraid of the work, far from it. The training was non existant and it's very difficult to sell a product when you are not fully trained, it's also even harder to achieve full time targets when working less than 20 hours a week.

You do the math.

Raekwon

A mate of mine worked for Page 7 Media (who own Car Buyers Guide?) and said that the atmosphere and working conditions there were deplorable.

It's apparently owned by some middle-aged egomaniac and his two sisters and they threat people like dirt and pay absolute peanuts.

I'd avoid this place if I were you OP!

Otis Driftwood

Raekwon wrote: »

A mate of mine worked for Page 7 Media (who own Car Buyers Guide?) and said that the atmosphere and working conditions there were deplorable.

It's apparently owned by some middle-aged egomaniac and his two sisters and they threat people like dirt and pay absolute peanuts.

I'd avoid this place if I were you OP!

Lol,when I was there everyone was terrified of the boss,floor managers,the lot.They renaged on a contributary bonus payment that had been deducted from the staffs own salary without any discussion,they were told like it or lump it.

Horrendous.

Pistol_Pete

WOW! :eek: It sounds like a total kip, thanks for your advice anyway but I think I'll look around for something less stressful.

LOL.

I remember the smug, small fat guy you people are talking about.

I was never ever afraid of him, I used to just think how sleazy and smug he looked.

connundrum

Deleted User wrote: »

I remember the smug, small fat guy you people are talking about.

Page 7 Owner Ray Egan?

I think its great how he gets one of his magazines to run an article about how great he personally is, and how great one of his other ventures is. Classic Murdoch.

AARRRGH

Funny reading about Page7 as I just realised they own MenuPages.ie who are a bit shady themselves (thread).

Debzz

They make their staff work on a 55 week year - and then keep 3 weeks of the pay they have agreed to pay you on contract (they say they only do this for the first year ... not true!). So, on average they take 1,500 euro from each staff member once a year - at their height they had approx. 120 people working ... you do the sums there! They fire on the spot with no reasons given, people come in to work and are subjected to humiliating treatment and then told to leave! There are literally thousands of people who have worked there in good faith and been utterly shafted. No-one will do business with them anymore! My advice to you is to not get your name associated with them! Mud Sticks!

Debzz

Deleted User wrote: »

LOL.

I remember the smug, small fat guy you people are talking about.

I was never ever afraid of him, I used to just think how sleazy and smug he looked.

Hilarious!!!! I've seen him too ... puke!

bluemoo

Im in no way sticking up for the owner or company as a whole, as some of the claims written here are obviously horrendous....

But if the company is so bad then how has the owner won a host of rewards including golden spiders?....and owns some of the indusrtys best selling magazines and publications?

Aso with a staff of 120 people surely they must be doing something right?

There are obviously trading with other companies whom you guys are saying dont know about the shady set up they are alleged to have in operation?

AARRRGH

bluemoo wrote: »

if the company is so bad then how has the owner won a host of rewards including golden spiders?

You pay for a Golden Spider award. They are not a genuine award. It's just a marketing thing.

bluemoo

bluemoo wrote: »

Im in no way sticking up for the owner or company as a whole, as some of the claims written here are obviously horrendous....

But if the company is so bad then how has the owner won a host of rewards including golden spiders?....and owns some of the indusrtys best selling magazines and publications?

Aso with a staff of 120 people surely they must be doing something right?

There are obviously trading with other companies whom you guys are saying dont know about the shady set up they are alleged to have in operation?

It's an efficient model which uses mainly low skilled staff.

And as AARRRGH says, it's a marketing thing.

Raekwon

bluemoo wrote: »

Aso with a staff of 120 people surely they must be doing something right

The poster said at their peak they had around 120 staff but I heard they have less then 50 now, could be wrong though.

Darragh29

OP, don't walk, RUN... I worked for this company for a short period a few years back, I've never had an experience like it, not before or since.

The atmosphere in the business is horrible, without a doubt the worst run business or "organisation" as they like to call it, that I have ever come across. They have a well established and consistent reputation for f*cking people over again and again and again. One of my friends did business with them and swore that he would never do any business with them again, no matter what he did, he couldn't get paid off them, he ended up just writing off the debt and telling them to f*ck off and never come near him again, they just didn't want to pay him, I saw a lot of this going on within the business while I was there, this kind of "f*ck 'em" attitude to suppliers and staff.

There is this culture within the business of using people (staff and also suppliers), for a very short time and then getting rid of them, there is a little clique of relatives within the business and they genuinely appear to believe that they are bred from a superior gene pool than the rest of us, the only words I could use to describe them are misplaced egomaniacs and narcissists. The only people who seem to enjoy any degree of job security within the business are family members, everyone else is dispensible.

As for Golden Spiders, they changed the rules a year or two ago as to how you could apply for a Golden Spider Award (the awards process used to be influenced by the number of tables you bought at the awards night, costing 3K each), and since they changed the application process to make it more fair for other appliants, this company haven't won an award.

Please take my advice and run a mile from this crowd... You'd be better off unemployed than getting involved with this shower of users.

MrPatMustard

Horrible people to work for. When I worked there, they had this complete sales pitch made up for cold calls that was typed up and handed out to all sales staff. There would no problem with this in itself if any of it had been true... it went something like this... "hello, we're just about to invest 250,000 Yero in a new media campaign that will droive loike a million web users a week to our website and will massively increase circulation of our printed magazine, which means more sales for you"...

This complete schhpeel was knocked togeher by management and then printed up and handed out to all sales staff... it was put up all over the place then a few months later they ran a few radio ads a day to say they ran a media campaign as they said they would... it certainly didn't cost 250K or anywhere even remotely close to it the ads were no sooner on the air and they were off again, run on a hardly heard of radio station that in all likelihood had very cheap rates.

The least credible and worst run company I have ever had the misfortune to work for, avoid avoid avoid at all costs if you value your dignity and sanity...

Phat Cat

I also had the misfortune of working for this shower of users once upon a time. I still keep in contact with some people in there and they said that it has gotten even worse since I left (I feel really sorry for you guys still working there by the way!)

Alot of good people (some there for the guts of a decade) have been thoroughly shafted by the money obsessed owner and the vast majority have left on bad terms or had to go through the legal system to get what they were owed. That is never a good thing and it's refreshing to see other ex employees come out and expose these leeches for what they really are.

Alot of people who replied to this thread seemed to be only short term classified sales people who never got to see how this company really operated but everything in Darragh29's post was 100% accurate. They squeeze their staff until they are deemed dispensable then they will be callously discarded without a seconds thought. It really is a despicably poor run place and deserves the terrible reputation that it has rightfully earned (and most likely proud of in a warped kind of way).

Debzz wrote: »

They make their staff work on a 55 week year - and then keep 3 weeks of the pay they have agreed to pay you on contract

I was also informed that they sent a memo around to staff the day the last two weeks of this 'bonus' was suppose to be paid telling everyone that they cannot afford to pay them the money that they had already worked for. Classy!

hillychick

Sorry bluemoo am coming in very late to this thread, just heard about it and as i know a lot about CBG and Page 7 I had to comment..they are possibly the worst employer ever, i could list a million people who've had awful experiences working there.

the answer to your question is that its quite easy to purchase a golden spider, if you throw a few bob at the award ceremony and buy plenty of tables you are guaranteed a win. they have no creidbility in the industry for that reason.

I'm so tempted to write hilarious and not so hilarious stories about working at cgb but i might get kicked off the thread as some of them are downright outrageous... :-)

markesmith

AARRRGH wrote: »

You pay for a Golden Spider award. They are not a genuine award. It's just a marketing thing.

Seconded. Everyone in the industry knows that, it's not even close to an authentic award.

MrDarcy

hillychick wrote: »

Sorry bluemoo am coming in very late to this thread, just heard about it and as i know a lot about CBG and Page 7 I had to comment..they are possibly the worst employer ever, i could list a million people who've had awful experiences working there.

the answer to your question is that its quite easy to purchase a golden spider, if you throw a few bob at the award ceremony and buy plenty of tables you are guaranteed a win. they have no creidbility in the industry for that reason.

I'm so tempted to write hilarious and not so hilarious stories about working at cgb but i might get kicked off the thread as some of them are downright outrageous... :-)

It is actually difficult to describe in words how poorly you will be treated within this business. The really sad thing is that the kind of issues that you would run into within this business, I found were typically caused by a small number of people within the business who have out of control ego's and are completely and utterly useless individuals, but they are related to the guy who owns the business, so on that basis they are not subject to the same rules of retention, for example competence, ability, work ethic, professionalism, etc, as the rest of us would normally be.

Without a doubt the most absolutely pretensious, stuck up, airy fairy, Walter Mitty, "let's all play mental mindgames, sure aren't we just brilliant altogether", office I have ever had the misfortune to work in, avoid avoid avoid if you value your sanity, no money would pay you to work in this business.

sarahpink

I started a thread because I was thinking about applying for a job with InDublin but thankfully a poster warned me off and posted a link to this thread. I have to say I'm absolutely shocked at peoples comments! :eek: That place sounds like an absolute nightmare!

Dave_24irl

I worked here and lasted four days. My training consisted of sitting in a room with an absolute weapon of a woman who encouraged me to embellish the benefits of what I was selling. They expected me after one day, at the age of 21 to cold call 200 people and make massive sales. They wanted me to call every tradesman in every county from the golden pages and sell them advertising space. Not only that they wanted me to take the persons credit card details over the phone and make the sale before the call ended (bear in mind I could be anyone calling them). It was a ridiculous place to work and the morale in the office seemed deplorable.

As for the owners, the less said the better. Egomaniacs wouldn't even begin to describe it.

Honestly, save your time and sanity, apply elsewhere.

Kool Keith

The people who run InDublin magazine (Page 7 Media) are truly the lowest common denominator of human life. Click here for to see why.

Phat Cat

I can't believe that they did that.........but it's hardly surprising and very mild by their standards.

marcos172

I don't know if I can add anything to this but I did see some time ago someone on (I think it was) this site criticising the cbg.ie website and the next post was from Ray Egan telling the OP that he was wrong, his points weren't valid and that Ray has received loads of positive press and comments about the website.

I worked for cbg.ie myself for a month a few years ago. To be honest I was useless at cold calling whereas there were plenty around me that were very good, and in fairness to my immediate managers, they were very patient when we didn't get the sales. What people are saying about high weekly targets is true, but then you see that in a lot of companies. The staff (who weren't blow-ins from college just working there for the summer) that worked in the other magazines were decent people to work with and it was a nice office to work in.

Ray's biggest mistake was having glass walls around his office where you could see and hear from the far end of the open plan area when he was losing his cool at our immediate superiors because we weren't getting the sales. That happened quite a lot actually, and I was only there for 4 weeks. I can't imagine the situation's changed much since then.

Lastly, my cousin's husband tried to sell his 5-Series on cbg.ie a few years back. Not only did he sell it quite easily through carzone.ie instead, but when he went to check his credit card balance a few months later, he found that cbg.ie were still charging his card for ads he never gave them permission to renew. I think that says it all really.

I wouldn't bother applying to that company for a job, like someone said earlier you'd probably be better off in Dunnes. The great thing about the recession is people are not as careless with their money so hopefully "businesses" like this one will go under long before others do.

shankespony

Found the thread, says it all really

shankespony

Sorry, Here goes

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=63146415

Eoin

Old thread