The following e-mail was sent to me by a former CareerBuilder (wiki - search) sales rep. The locations and names have been changed to protect the innocent:

“In late ‘07 I went through CareerBuilder’s new hire training in Anytown, USA. During training we were told NOT TO TALK TO HR when calling into companies. I am not one to bash my previous employers and I have no reason to be bitter towards CareerBuilder, however I really don’t have many positive things to say about my experience there. Also during training they focused more on teaching us ‘how to sell’ than how to help employers and understand their needs.
“We had to learn a sales presentation that was to be exercised in every sales call. We were also required to learn rebuttals verbatim to every type of objection a client could possibly have. Bottom line is they are so focused on sales and revenue they forget to really help their clients. Not to mention their inside sales reps are required to make 125 outgoing calls-per-day. I believe there is a line between quality and quantity and they definitely care more about the quantity. On a positive note I have talked to many recruiters an HR professionals in the Anytown market who say they have good responses from CareerBuilder. I think their newspaper partners are their saving grace.”

Such commentary is not exclusive to CareerBuilder. Aggressive sales activities in our highly competitive environment are just the nature of the beast, I guess. I do wonder, however, how many times anecdotes like this have occurred when Craigslist is concerned. Yeah, like, never.

And maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there.