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Went for an interview with these people today. Applied for a job advertised as 'events/marketing assistant' which I'd be great at. However, after reading this which exactly what happened to me, I don't think I want to get sucked into a door to door role, which was not at all mentioned in the advert, and the only mention in the interview was that the Managing Director, Nick, 'started off' as a door to door salesman. I don't think that knocking door to door qualifies as events marketing, so I'm glad I read this and I won't be going to my 'day in the life' tomorrow.
This was at Shand House, in Shand Street, near London Bridge, on the floor only marked as 'London Marketing'. Very dodgy, not to have your company name up, no? Why hide it?

After reading these comments and realising the exact same thing happened to me earlier today, I definitely know I will not be returning Friday. They even tried persuading me to quit my current job today! I earn around 800-850 a month. Okay that isn't as much as i "could" earn working for these con-artists but I have 100% job security and am definitely not treated like this.

I had a bad feeling about this interview when I was on my way there, so i decided to research the telephone number on the email I was sent when I got home and found this which I am so glad I did. I also find funny how the "company" only rang me on a witheld number, with no way to trace the call. The Job Advert, Person Spec and Interview was all too vague and something didn't seem right.

And before any previous employee that wishes to undermine me of being "shy of hard work" or anything like that; don't. I am not trying to make my self sound like someone I'm not but I DO work very hard and am a driven person (why I applied for the role in the first place) willing to give anything a try. I cannot wait to be contacted by them as I will give them a piece of my mind.

I just hope no-one else falls for this and ends up thoroughly dissapointed.

I saw an advert for AC Generations on reed.co.uk -- slightly worrying.  I've reported it just in case.

my son applied for a job with ljr marketing.he has never worked a day in his life yet his cv was outstanding and exceptional and couldnt wait for him to go for an interview.what l load of croc...he went and was told he had made the 2nd stage which was to follow his leader around the streets for 11 hours.knocking on ppls door mythering them to sign upto a charity.for every sign up he would get he himself would get £18 per sign up.in london they are called chuggers.charity muggers...and they are trying to ban them in london..i know when i come home from a hard days work i dont want be mythered with these kind of people.

LJR Marketing Ltd or Limited !  changed name on 8th November 2012 to
CITYBUZZ MARKETING LIMITED or Ltd !!

https://www.duedil.com/company/07253114/citybuzz-marketing-limited

I went to srj not impressed liverpool has them too. i got an e mail sayin that they hope i am all ready for my interview i replied back that ferries from ireland are docked not sailing due to weather they replied when can i be in Manchester

D review by sam is samantha a senior person with the company watch out for helen poutakidis she is with a sister group in galway ireland went for interview thank god did not get picked was in an empty office was told all were in liverpool training ya exactly being duped into chugging

I have been for interviews with CityBuzz Marketing for the past few days. I want to go into marketing and PR so thought this would be a great opportunity to gain some experience and get me on the career ladder. I told them I was still an undergraduate and would be going back to uni in September which didn't put them off giving me a 1st or 2nd interview which I found odd. In both interviews they hardly asked me about my experience, skills or qualities and instead focused on what the company was about, in the first interview they didn't even mention it was door knocking. Come to my second interview today, they saw me an hour later than previously stated so I was waiting around for ages, I was then seen by a 'manager' who bought me lunch and basically told me it was door knocking. I was then taken in a car with four other men to housing estates on the outskirts of Manchester to go door knocking to gain money for charity. At this point although I was uncomfortable with the situation I didn't question it as I thought it would be unprofessional. As I had by this point decided that the job wasn't for me I didn't make an effort to sale myself for the rest of the day. By 4pm my interviewer told me that I was through to the third round and he was taking me back to meet with his manager Lawrence Randell. I was confused as I felt I had made no effort to get the job. I then told him that I didn't want the job and that it wasn't for me to which he then smothered me with insults and stated that I didn't even need a third interview and that he wanted to take me on for his team anyway. He said I could work part time and that me leaving for uni wouldn't be a problem at all and that I should take this as an opportunity to gain some valuable experience. Me being foolish I didn't even ask of there was a basic rate of pay. I agreed to take on the job and that I would come in on Monday to sign all necessary paperwork just so they would let me leave. I have come home and have researched this company to find this thread. I shall definitely be telling the to get stuffed before Monday. They wanted me to work 11am to 8am off commission alone, they enticed me in saying I would be a account manager in 4 weeks, that there were opportunities to travel around the world and that I would be making 100 pounds a day. The failed to mention that if I didn't hit my targets then I wouldn't be getting paid at all. Watch out!

Thanks for the posts guys. I thought they seemed a little too eager to get me in the door and definitely far too sketchy on details on their website. Citybuzz Marketing have a very dicey fell to them and as mentioned priorly don't advertise where they are clearly on their building. Have cancelled my interview, I'd rather walk into traffic then work for them.

i went to the ones in manchester for citybuzz which is what the company is going by now. same as all you guys. made to feel like i was special and had potential. got told in 8 months i'd be in canada where i wanted to be opening my own marketing. this isn't a real sales job. this is even worse than cold calling because you have to face people and it's embarrassing it's like begging them on behalf of a company that's what you're being made to do. a real sales job is where you work for a company and you meet business to business, you shouldn't have to meet the clients? if they're a company that's doing well you shouldn't have to go door to door begging people to sign up. people should be coming to you. as for promoting you within 6-8 months. ridiculous. they'll tell you they believe in teaching you from the bottom and working up. it's all [***]. they are all completely brainwashed and no matter how desperate you are DO NOT waste your time. their offices are a joke. full of nothing. what i want to know is how the [***] the managers are making so much money for doing [***] all. they don't go out door to door selling so what they [***] are they doing to make money? doesn't add up right? they will make you think it's the best thing and sweet talk you when really it's not worth your time or energy.

as for the bloke a few pages back banging on about how we don't know hard work and what a real sales job is, mate you're completely deluded. if you think this is real sales you've obviously never had a real sales job yourself. yes a real sales job can work off commission but you wouldn't be made to talk to the customers. a good clean well established business wouldn't need people on the streets begging for subscriptions because it's clientele is already thriving and making money.
this isn't a marketing job either which is what they're advertising it as. marketing implies you suggest and come up with ways to advertise a companies product using things like INDIRECT MARKETING which is what they tell you is bad when you do this 'oh the job' task crap. the reason indirect marketing works for companies is because they're so big and have a good name for themselves they don't need to rely on brainwashed monkeys running round being the 'face' of their company. because would you honestly see someone like SKY or COCA COLA doing this kind of thing? no, it would destroy their reputation.

i hope enough of you see this and don't get sucked in. it's not you it's them. don't feel down because they scammed you, you're not alone and at least you're not still there

remember kids, if it's too good to be true it nearly always is and this is no exception.

xo

Woah they told me the exact same thing!! Can't believe I was so stupid to fall for sales tactics at a sales company. I knew something wasn't right. Glad there are more people who feel the same!

Wow! I have an interview wih City Buzz this afternoon but felt i better get some reviews on them first.... this amount of people can't be wrong! That appointment is gettting binned, I had a feeling that something was up with this from the moment I applied and they came back to me.... everyone else ignores me ha ha. The web design is very poor and the Temp. office sounded strange. Thanks to this thread for saving me some agro and a waste of time.

Citybuzz marketing is all over reed.co.uk right now advertising lots of cool sounding marketing jobs with vague job descriptions. I sent my CV through Reed with a half-assed one paragraph cover letter and got a boiler-plate email saying I was successful in getting an interview. So happy that I googled the company and found this thread. I knew something was up with the vague job descriptions and even more vague company website. If you read it all carefully the clues that this is actually door-to-door sales are there.

Just had the heartbreaking job of explaining to my daughter that the job she was about to start was in fact nothing more than a scam!!
She was thrilled to get her first interview after trying for so long to find employment, she was over the moon to have been offered the job and was so excited to finally have the independence that employment can give. I was very suspicious when, after her second interview, she went missing for hours and wasnt answering her phone. When she eventually did, she said the company had offered her an immediate trialand she would be home soon. She eventually arrived back home at 22.40, cold, wet and hungry. She had been out of the house since 09.30, and her trial consisted of being driven to a very dodgy area of Manchester and shown how to knock on doors mithering people to sign up to a charity. She got a phonecall the following day saying she had the job and would be meeting a 'manager'. The meeting took place in a cafe with a polish lady who spoke very poor English but enough to ask for my daughters bank details!!!
Please, please, please beware of this scam!! Jobs these days are so hard to come by and companies like this snatch the dreams of our youngsters and throw them back in their face!! Such a cruel thing to do to anyone so desperate to work.
Thankfully, after much disappointment and lots of tears, my daughter realised that this 'job' was a con and didnt actually start.
Dispicable cruel company who shattered my daughters dreams and confidence..may you rot in hell!!!!

I am already employed and looking for a new job.

Saw this city buzz marketing job role and applied. It looked a bit vague but so are some others out there.

The 1st strange thing was an email stating they could do an interview tomorrow, that's a bit short notice, but they would accommodate me after 6pm.

So I went after work to an office on mason street in Manchester,

The guy who interviewed talked so fast and another guy looking at me from the side.

No I ain't no wimp and I told him that I felt incomfortBle with the guy to my side, that either he should be in front of me or no here at all. He didn't like that, mouthed off a bit about analyzing. So I bollocked him back about interview procedure.

I then moved on to what exactly was the job role. He told me it was field sales and I asked him about pay. Once I heard the word commission only. I smirked stood up and said good bye. Guy was gutted.

My advice, speak up, and get the facts

I had an 'assessment day' with CityBuzz today... I started at 11.15, but they were late and we didn't hit the road until about 11.35am. This was after much deliberation in the waiting room with all the other interviewees about how vague and nondescript the rob roles were... It wasn't until I got in the care with four other people that I realised that it was door-to-door sales. The idea that they are ALL climbing the 'ladder' is insane. Those 'account managers' that took us around were extra friendly and brilliant and did their jobs perfectly, but that is not what I expected a marketing role to be like. It was extremely suspicious that they specified that 'THIS IS NOT A CALL CENTRE JOB' - as if to entice those who, like me, have had previous unsatisfying work in the field of sales at a different level. Furthermore, they specified that they do not require experience. EXTRA WORRYING IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING A SERIOUS ROLE IN MARKETING. What should have made me suspicious at first was when Sasha, who is the assistant manager of the branch at just 19 years old, asked if i was after full time or part time work. Considering the whole thing is marketed as a managerial scheme, WHY WOULD IT BE PART TIME. I went along with it to give the whole thing a chance but it just seemed to progress in vagueness and nonsense. I have an MA in Humanitarianism, that is why I applied for the role - for their experience dealing with NGOs and non-profit organisations. I feel ashamed that I will have to pass my time as a post-grad having almost been seduced by such a suspicious an ridiculous offer.

ALSO - WHAT MARKETING COMPANY HAS ONLY 52 TWITTER FOLLOWERS????????? THIS IS SURELY THE BASIC LEVEL OF SKILLS REQUIRED BY A COMPANY THAT SEEMS TO BOAST CLIENTS SUCH AS TALKTALK AND LOVEFILM!!!!!!!! If you ignore anything else I have written, consider this PLEASE.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.

Worked at CityBuzz for a while - they boast to be working with TalkTalk because they're one of the largest companies they work with and make an annual turn over for TalkTalk of roughly 2.5 million - low rolling it massively. For a SMS business that is quite the sum. And as for the charities they work with they generate about 1.65 million a year for those.

Your remark about how many twitter followers CityBuzz has is redundant as it has nothing to do with the form of marketing they do for their clients.

I think that the majority of people claiming this industry to be a scam are far too narrow minded to understand the business platform direct marketing and sales has in the world of business - with a success rate of well over 90% in new start up businesses and continuous growth the world or direct marketing has just begun to flourish.

Good luck to anyone lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to be a part of something growing so fast.

I agree

I worked there for a while and it has done wonders for me

They were very professional and a pleasure to work with, i feel that some people are too quick to try and make companies look bad to make themselves feel better, i hope people who read this thread aren't as narrow minded as the people writing them because its really unfair if someone misses out on an opportunity like this.

Good luck to anyone who applies :)

Direct marketing is done by these companies in two main ways:
residentially - door to door, ie charities, mark group etc
events - stalls in shopping malls etc - for companies like SKY, love film and talktalk.

It is one of the most effective methods and I suggest you research properly before making unfounded accusations and embarrassing yourself.

its amazing, 99% of these posts are from people who havent worked at the company, im going to ask them in my interview what's going on/