What are stock options worth in a job offer? 2 tests

What are stock options worth in a job offer? 2 tests

Question

Part of the compensation in my job offer will be in stock options. The company is a start-up a few years old that’s backed by private equity. I know this might seem crazy — joining a start-up in this economy. But I’ve made my decision. The company appears to be in a solid position to grow in the coming years. What I need your help on is this: How can I equate stock with straight salary? What kinds of things should I consider when factoring in the stock options to determine if this is the right way to go? Thanks.

Nick’s Reply

stock optionsHey, I don’t knock start-ups. As long as you’ve made your own judgment, and have done it carefully, the decision is yours. So let’s focus on your questions.

Stock options as pay

The best analysis of start-ups and “stock as compensation” that I’ve seen is in Sizing Up A Start-Up by Daniel Rippy, an oldie-but-goody you can buy used. Rippy’s book will be very helpful. But the important point is that you’re “throwing in” with the company. You’re accepting the risk that part of your pay is riding on the company’s success (and on the honesty of the investors and the management team).

What does it mean to accept stock?

Welcome to the lottery!

You can’t equate stock with salary. That’s why start-ups often assign significant blocks of stock to newcomers like you — the value is totally uncertain, and it can take a lot of iffy shares to make up for real dollars in salary.

Now, if that sounds anti-entrepreneurial to you, I don’t mean it to be. Start-up businesses are the economic backbone of our country’s future. I’m all for taking risks. But don’t lull yourself into accepting a job offer because of the stock.

Make sure you’re happy with the job and the income you’ll be earning. Consider the stock your lottery ticket. If you get rich, great. But don’t count on it. Even if you really believe in the company, remember that the value of stock at IPO time is determined by factors that are largely out of your (and the company’s) control: investors including private equity and venture capital firms, the economy, stock market psychology, competition, the weather, which side of the bed the chairman of the Federal Reserve woke up on, and so on.

2 tests for stock options

I’ll offer you two thinking exercises to help you figure out for yourself how to view stock options in your job offer.

First is a test that was suggested to me long ago by the CEO of a start-up. If you were not considering a job there, but this start-up’s stock were in fact available to purchase on the open market, would you buy some at the strike price today? (The strike price is how much you’d pay per share when your stock options are fully vested.) It’s an interesting question that forces us to realize that, if we’re considering stock options as part of salary, to accept those options is to make an investment in the company. Do you believe in the company enough to be an investor?

75% of start-ups fail

The second test forces us to eliminate the stock options from our calculation, as if the options will be worthless. While you could get rich from stock options, consider that, depending on the survey, 65%-75% of venture-funded start-ups fail.

You’ll know the company and the job are right for you if you’d take the job at the salary offered without stock. This helps us see stock more clearly as a reward and a bonus, and the salary as pay for our work. You can spend salary now. You cannot spend stock options.

Do you want to be an employee or an investor?

But don’t think only like an investor. Think like an employee. That company might fail and your stock options might be worthless, but you could win big. Between a good salary and the opportunity to develop your skills working in an innovative, leading-edge business where you get a chance to do work not offered elsewhere — this job might be perfect for you.

If you need help negotiating your job offer, please see Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master of Job Offers.

I believe the bottom line is that you can’t equate stock with salary. My advice is to decide whether you want to be an employee or an investor in this start-up company. You can be both, but don’t confuse stock options with salary. You’ll know the offer is right if you’re willing to accept the salary and put the stock in a drawer and forget about it for now.

Apply those two tests to this opportunity and be brutally honest with yourself about what motivates you.

Would you accept less salary in a job offer if it included stock options? Did you ever receive stock options as part of a job offer? How did it factor into your decision? Have you ever profited from stock options you got in an offer?

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FTC Halts Fake Jobs & Resume Repair Operation

SevenFigureCareersSPECIAL EDITION: The Federal Trade Commission charges SevenFigureCareers and Craig Chrest with “bilking consumers” for “sham job placement and resume repair services.”

SevenFigureCareers Revisited

A series of investigative articles appeared here between September 2016 and January 2017 about SevenFigureCareers, an “executive search firm” that charged people money for job interviews with “private equity” (PE) and “venture capital” (VC) firms.

In February 2017 Craig Chrest and Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions, LLC — the owner and operator of SevenFigureCareers — filed suit in New Jersey Superior Court against Ask The Headhunter’s principals, claiming the articles were “false.” Our legal team removed the case to U.S. Federal Court (District of New Jersey) and mounted a vigorous defense. While that case is pending, on advice of legal counsel nothing further has been published here in the interim. The original articles have remained online.

UPDATE

On April 30, 2019 the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, dismissed SevenFigureCareers’ suit against the principals of Ask The Headhunter.

This special edition of Ask The Headhunter is a reprint of the full text of a U.S. Federal Trade Commission press release issued February 25, 2019, about the FTC’s action against Chrest, Worldwide, and PrivateEquityHeadhunters:

FTC Halts Fake Job Opportunity and Resume Repair Operation

Alleges defendants tricked consumers into paying advance fees of up to $2,500 for placement and resume services for jobs that did not exist

FOR RELEASE
February 25, 2019

The Federal Trade Commission charged two companies and their owner with bilking hundreds of thousands dollars annually from consumers for sham job placement and resume repair services. A federal court halted the scheme and froze the defendants’ assets at the FTC’s request.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions, LLC, PrivateEquityHeadhunters.com, and their owner, Craig Chrest, sent consumers unsolicited messages through well-known business networking websites, like LinkedIn, falsely claiming to have exclusive relationships with hundreds of private equity and venture capital firms, and telling consumers they were candidates for unadvertised, highly paid executive positions with these firms.

To get an interview, job seekers were required to pay upfront fees of $1,200-$2,500. In many instances, the defendants were pocketing consumers’ money knowing the job opportunities were fake, according to the FTC.

“Consumers should be wary about paying money for a job opportunity or interview,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Paying upfront for job placement services is often a sign of a scam.”

The defendants also deceived job seekers with false claims that those who used their services had a 100 percent interview rate and over an 80 percent placement rate, according to the FTC.

Since at least 2016, the defendants also deceptively sold purported resume repair services, telling consumers that their resumes were deficient and that they could not be considered for a job unless the defendants fixed their resumes. In many instances, the purported job was fake, according to the FTC.

The defendants are charged with violating the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

The defendants in this case are Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions, LLC (also doing business as WWEJSS, Seven Figure Careers, 7FigRecruiters, 7FC, Finnburg Switzer, ResumeterPro, Creating Job Opportunity, Confidential Jobs Only, CJOnly, and CJO Private Equity); PrivateEquityHeadhunters.com, LLC (also doing business as PE Headhunters, Private Equity Headhunters, and PEHHS.COM LLC); and Craig Chrest, who owns and controls both companies.

The Commission vote authorizing staff to file the complaint was 5-0. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas entered a temporary restraining order against the defendants on February 11, 2019. The FTC has requested the entry of a preliminary injunction that would halt the scheme until trial.

FTCThe Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our blogs, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.

FTC Complaint

The Complaint filed against Chrest’s businesses by the FTC in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Houston Division alleges in part:

 

  • “since at least 2014, Defendants have deceptively advertised, marketed, promoted, and sold bogus job placement and resume repair services, duping consumers out of millions of dollars.”
  • “the job interview is a charade”
  • “In many instances, the potential employer does not exist but is a shell entity established and controlled by Defendants.”
  • “Defendants have established or controlled websites or created press releases for the purported PE/VC firms”
  • “Defendants have similarly used deception to sell purported resume repair services.”
  • “Defendants have frequently shut down their operations and re-opened similar operations using new assumed names, websites, or aliases.”
  • “In 2017 and 2018, Defendants’ website has used numerous assumed names, including CJOnly and CJO Private Equity.”
  • “Defendants have operated a series of websites over the years:
    • PrivateEquityHeadhunters.com (2014);
    • PEHHS.com (2014); www.sevenfigurecareers.com (2015);
    • 7figrecruiters.com, www.FinnbergSwitzer.com, and www.resumeterpro.com (2016); and
    • exx20171.com (2017-2018).”

 

Temporary Restraining Order

In addition to freezing Defendant Chrest’s assets and halting his business activities, the Court has ordered that the following statement be displayed prominently on Chrest’s websites relating to his business activities — “any website used by any Defendant in connection with the advertising, marketing, and promotion of any job placement or resume repair services”:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Defendants:

Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions, LLC (Worldwide), also doing business as WWEJSS, Seven Figure Careers, 7FigRecruiters, 7FC, Finnburg Switzer, ResumeterPro, Creating Job Opportunity, Confidential Jobs Only, CJOnly, and CJO Private Equity;

PrivateEquityHeadhunters.com, LLC, also doing business as Private Equity Headhunters, PE Headhunters, and PEHHS.COM, LLC; and

Craig Nicholas Chrest.

The lawsuit alleges that Defendants have engaged in deceptive practices in connection with the advertising, marketing, promotion and sales of job placement and resume repair services. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas has issued a Temporary Restraining Order prohibiting the alleged deceptive practices.

You may obtain additional information directly from the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC has also published this post on its Business Blog, offering suggestions to consumers and advising “to do your research before paying for placement services”: “Executive search firm” charged with giving job seekers the business.

Comments

There are two legal cases:

  • The action filed in 2017 by Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions LLC, a/k/a SEVEN FIGURE CAREERS and Craig Chrest against the principals of Ask The Headhunter, and
  • The FTC’s new action against Worldwide Executive Job Search Solutions, LLC (also doing business as WWEJSS, Seven Figure Careers, 7FigRecruiters, 7FC, Finnburg Switzer, ResumeterPro, Creating Job Opportunity, Confidential Jobs Only, CJOnly, and CJO Private Equity); PrivateEquityHeadhunters.com, LLC (also doing business as PE Headhunters, Private Equity Headhunters, and PEHHS.COM LLC); and Craig Chrest.

While the case involving Ask The Headhunter is pending, I will not participate in discussion on this matter — but you are of course welcome to post your comments. When the case is resolved, I will chime in.

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What are stock options worth in a job offer?

In the November 13, 2018 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter a reader asks whether to accept stock options as part of a compensation package.

Question

stock optionsI’ve been with the same company for five years, with total 18 years’ experience. I’m considering an attractive offer from a year-old start-up financed by a very respected venture capital group. The offer includes stock options. The idea is that someday they’ll go public and will be hugely successful, or someone will buy the company, and we’ll all become rich (on paper).

My question is, how would I go about putting a value on the stock options offered? Understanding the risk I assume, what should I negotiate for? Any suggestions?

Nick’s Reply

Venture funding for start-ups by respected venture groups is slowly picking up after a lull of several years – and that’s a good sign for the economy. But don’t count any stock options before they hatch.

There are as many subtle variations on evaluating options as there are start-ups. You could do well, or you could wind up very disappointed.

I’ll offer you two simple rules of thumb. There is no finesse in this. It doesn’t even involve calculations; just a blunt point of view that I’ve developed as a headhunter during many years of dealing with people who’ve faced this situation. A very few have profited from options, but most haven’t.

Stock Options: Rule 1

The first rule is that the factors which influence a start-up company’s success or failure are unknown to you at this point, and you have virtually no control over them. More important, to varying degrees we can say the same about the founders of the company and those who are funding it.

  • Thus, any attempt you make to rationally analyze how much start-up stock to hold out for — or to estimate what that stock is really worth today or in the unknown future is a crapshoot.

Stock Options: Rule 2

Here’s my second rule:

  • All stock options in start-ups are worthless by definition because you cannot put a value on something you cannot sell.

How to think about that job offer

Now for my advice, based on those two rules:

  • Accept the offer only if the work and the compensation package without the options would make you take the job.

How to negotiate the job offer

Negotiate for all the stock options you can get. But beware: A company is not likely to give you more options than it has already decided on. Management has thought about this more than you have, under the guidance of people who put up their cash to start the business. Unless you would be a key employee whose expertise would have a key impact on the company’s chances of success, you probably don’t have much leverage to negotiate options.

Now here’s the most important thing to take away from this discussion:

  • Negotiate harder for salary, bonus, incentives, commissions and allowances, and consider the stock options a lottery ticket.

This is what will keep you truly motivated day in and out. While I understand when a start-up’s founders say they want employees who are truly motivated to “throw in with us and take a risk,” you must decide how much of a risk you can afford to take — and whether you’re willing to give up part of your own market value today (cash compensation) for a chance to hit it big later.

Talk with a lawyer

No matter what they put in your job offer, a startup is a special situation because the risks are different from those in a mature company (even a small one). That’s why you should talk with a lawyer to get your job offer reviewed before you accept it.

These Ask The Headhunter PDF books will help you with the compensation end of a job offer:

Fearless Job Hunting, Book 6: The Interview – Be The Profitable Hire. This works even when discussing salary with your current employer.

Fearless Job Hunting, Book 7: Win The Salary Games (long before you negotiate an offer), especially “The Pool-Man Strategy: How to ask for more money,” pp. 13-15. Sometimes it helps to ask casually.

Fearless Job Hunting, Book 8: Play Hardball With Employers, especially “Due Diligence: Don’t take a job without it,” pp. 23-25. This is a must when considering a job at a start-up, though this section applies to established companies, too.

Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master of Job Offers, especially “Non-Compete: Did I really agree to that?”, pp. 5-7.

This article by my own attorney will highlight some of the issues you should consider: Employment Contracts: Everyone needs promise protection.

What’s your tolerance for risk?

Here is a sobering question to test your tolerance to risk in this situation:

  • If you had a chance to buy into this start-up without working there, would you buy its stock today?

If you wouldn’t invest in this start-up as a bystander, why would you take part of your pay in stock?

No matter how many options you get, if the company strikes it rich, I guarantee you’ll look back and think, “I knew I didn’t get enough options when I took this job!”

If the stock winds up worthless, you’ll be glad you were doing work you really wanted to do, and getting paid a nice package in the meantime.

Have you ever taken stock options as part of a job offer (with a start-up or otherwise)? How did it turn out? How did you negotiate the details? How would you advise this reader?

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7F: Anatomy of A Recruiting Scam

7f-logo-27F — it sounds cool, or it sounds foreboding. In Yoakum, Texas it’s a cattle brand used by a family ranch for generations. Here, it’s a recruiting scam that members of this community started chronicling in the comments section of this article. The logo at right belongs to a team of phony recruiters.

7F

7F is just one alias of a company also known as SevenFigureCareers, which we exposed for impersonating a lawyer and for practicing law without authorization when it threatened a user of this website (see SevenFigureCareers: Threats and fraud). My new ranching buddy in Texas — whose ranch is registered as 7F, Inc. with the State of Texas and which has nothing to do with the subject of this story — says his branding iron looks nothing like the 7F logo.

SevenFigureCareers

SevenFigureCareers recruiter Arthur French scheduled the phone interview for John Rice with Mark Allen, Managing Partner at Agile Capital Partners, a private equity (PE) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) firm.

Agile wanted to hire an executive for one of its start-up companies.

Rice, a former executive at a Fortune 50 company and founder of several companies himself, says the job interview started like this:

John Rice: “What firm did you say you were with?”

7f-agile-u-find-itMark Allen: “Agile.”

JR: “Who?”

MA: “Agile!”

JR: “Spell that.”

MA (irritated): “A-G-L-I-E!”

JR: “What?”

MA (angry): “I told you, A-G-L-I-E!”

“He kept misspelling it,” Rice told me. “Halfway through the interview, it just sounded fraudulent so I said I’d rather terminate this.”

A few minutes later, recruiter Art French called and screamed at Rice that he was out of line with Allen. Rice hung up the phone and called American Express to stop payment on the $2,500 he had paid French to deliver “seven-figure job opportunities.”

Rice didn’t know that the guy who interviewed him — Mark Allen — doesn’t exist.

SevenFigureCareerS

Depending on where you look, SevenFigureCareers’ name varies. It ends with a capital S in a PR Newswire press release: “SevenFigureCareerS.com Candidates Have Been Offered 33 Positions – Still Seeking 40 Executives for Portfolio Company Positions Owned by Private Equity.” The company’s name also surfaces on its contracts as 7FigureS, 7F, 7FIGureS, 7F.7Figcareers — and more permutations than I’ve bothered to count.

Just what is SevenFigureCareers? According to the press release:

With over 14 years of experience providing highly-qualified executive candidates to the private equity and venture capital communities in the United States and internationally, SevenFigureCareerS has established relationships with leading private equity firms including; Agile Capital, Rock Hill Capital, Briarcliff Solutions, A.G. Becker and Argo, LLC.  Currently, we have active relationships with over 411 companies which represents over 1,200 total portfolio company opportunities, however SevenFigureCareerS needs to fill 40 of these positions by the end of 2015.

There’s something else Rice and all the other executive victims solicited by Arthur French (a.k.a. Art and Tony) don’t know. The “leading private equity firms” that 7F recruits for don’t exist. Any of them.

7f-mystery-manArt and Tony French

I couldn’t find any evidence online or elsewhere that any of the SevenFigureCareers people exist. French’s sales pitch always emphasizes that his firm, his clients, and the big-name PE firms involved in these recruiting deals require the utmost confidentiality.

When one victim asked French why he’s not on LinkedIn, he explained that he has such a big network that if he created a LinkedIn profile he’d be so inundated with requests to connect that he could never handle them. So he prefers to stay under the radar.

Neither of the French aliases have a LinkedIn profile that remotely suggests they have anything to do with SevenFigureCareers, 7F, or any of the firms they claim to work with. On occasion, report French’s victims, Tony will call and forget he referred to himself as Art the last time they spoke — and explain that he’s got a twin. The “brothers'” voices are indistinguishable — though twins sometimes do sound  alike.

7f-2244-faradayArthur French has a slideshow on LinkedIn’s SlideShare site which conveniently gives him a  presence without any searchable information — like his name connected to 7F — on LinkedIn itself:

http://www.slideshare.net/SevenFigureCareers/arthur-french-executive-recruiter-and-with-recruiter-64799300

One slide notes the firm has been in operation for 14 years. A few slides later, we learn SevenFigureCareers has been in business 25 years. This site lists 2244 Faraday Avenue in Carlsbad, CA as the firm’s address.

Arthur also maintains a WordPress.com blog: https://sevenfigurecareers.wordpress.com/. French explains how “Your Data & Privacy is Kept Confidential by Arthur French at 2244, Faraday Ave.” It’s also how he re-directs searches for “Arthur French Complaints.” Check his August 17, 2016 posting titled “Arthur French Complaints.” Other post titles prominently include Google search keywords like “reviews” and “complaints” and “complaint.”

French’s sites mainly serve the same purpose his press releases do: They give his victims “credentials” to read.

Here are more credentials:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/seven-figure-careers-carlsbad-2

http://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/sevenfigurecareers.com

The Set-Up

Here’s how the deal is presented to the victim.

Recruiter Tony or Art French solicits you by e-mail after finding your profile on LinkedIn or in the database of a members-only executive networking group.

The Frenches tell you they have assignments to fill executive positions by Agile Capital Partners and RockHillCapitalPartners CB, small private equity firms that participate in big funding deals done by well-known investment partnerships like Apax Partners LLC, a legitimate British private equity and venture capital firm headquartered in London.

Mark Allen, Jason Goldberg, Christopher Blake and David Marx are managing partners at Agile and RockHill. One of their names appears on an e-mail that French forwards to you. This is the “original e-mail” bait used to convince you the job opportunity is real.

Mark Allen — it’s usually Allen — tells French in the e-mail French shares with you that you’re an excellent candidate and that Apax wants to move quickly to interview and hire you.

From: Mark Allen [mailto:m_allen@rockhillcapitalpartnerscb.com]

Sent: Monday, August 29, 2016 8:42 AM
To: recruiter.afrench@sevenfigcareers.com
Cc: Christopher Blake
Subject: Re: [victim’s name redacted]

Hi Tony, We are going through with the Telecommunication Technology Solutions As A Service Company deal based in the San Jose California area. Expecting the deal to be closed by the 2nd week in September. I really like this candidate for the Chief of Business Management role, and have suggested to the other directors to approve [name redacted], for an interview. Let us know his current employment status/availability. Copying C. Blake, on this email so we can get [name redacted], interviewed quickly. For the time being, have no issue with the compensation you listed or providing an appropriate relocation package if required. Really like this candidate Art, but please keep it confidential.

All the best,
Mark Allen, Managing Director
RHCP

All scammers are sloppy and it’s how they get busted. Note that Allen addresses the e-mail to Tony, but later refers to him as Art. This is just one of many tip-offs that something is wrong.

7F references

When a prospective victim starts asking questions and wants to talk with a reference about 7F, French volunteers a managing partner from Anderson and Vance Capital Advisors — Greg Anderson.

But the reference doesn’t wash: “Sounded like B.S. to me based upon his inflections, tone and lack of ease in the conversation,” said one who got away after talking with Anderson.

Julie: Social engineering

There’s also a bit of artless social engineering in the e-mail described above, intended to make you believe there’s a close business relationship between French and his client Allen. The mail thread includes another e-mail appended to the end — and the exact same material about “Julie” appears in many mails to many victims:

Mark,

Good talking to you and glad to hear Julie is doing better. Here is that candidate I feel will fit nicely with the Telecommunication / Technology Leadership role we discussed. The type of values you usually expect from a seasoned industry expert are what I see here with [victim’s name redacted].

Thank you

A. French
VP Recruiters
7F
866 621 1062

French’s mail is of course intended only for Allen, but now you’re an insider, and you can hope Julie is doing better, too. Now French tries to reel you in.

Strictly confidential — and expensive

French tells you his client, the job, the deal itself, the managing partner, any interviews, anything you hear or learn during the process — all of it — are highly confidential. You must sign a highly restrictive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and pay $2,500 to get the interview with the managing partner.

One victim reported: “I had a short conversation with Tony and asked for a reference. He is going to have someone call me. He stated the reason there is no info on the Internet is because they are contractually bound not to advertise any of their activities by the PE/VC [venture capital] companies they have contracts with.”

A tip-off

The first clear indication of a scam — even before you sign anything — is the phony, accelerated interview process. A real headhunter (or recruiter) will actually interview you in depth before daring to introduce you to a client.

But the Frenches don’t interview anyone — they just need your signature on a four-week contract that includes a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and your American Express card, and you’re off to the races.

By signing the NDA you agree that, if you utter a word anywhere about anyone or anything connected to this deal, you will pay a penalty “equal to the base service charge in the agreement multiplied by ten.” In other words, $25,000.

A bigger tip-off

Recruiters and headhunters never charge you money for a job interview or for any other service. They are always paid by the employer — their client.

Another tip-off

Note in the e-mail above, where French forwarded Allen’s e-mail to the victim, French violated confidentiality. Allen clearly wrote to him: “Really like this candidate Art, but please keep it confidential.”

The NDA

Another victim questioned the NDA. French explained why he doesn’t want job seekers doing any due diligence or any research to confirm what’s real and what’s phony about the deals French is selling:

Due to the confidential nature of our client company’s executive job searches and the level of financial compensation for our candidates, we must ask you to refrain from doing any due diligence or research activity on the Internet until we have been given approval by our client company.

You must click to accept that you will not violate the confidential terms and conditions of this search assignment, that you will not participate in any research type due diligence activity on the Internet that is associated in anyway shape or form with the client company or company’s presented to you, before we can share any information about this confidential skill match job opportunity.

Most of our executives have assigned confidential searches during their careers and understand the restrictions that surround a business relationship that has an in place (NDA) Non-Disclosure Agreement.

7F has developed an automated MATCH technology platform, a different approach to executive recruiting which gives us a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.  The smart shared-value approach technique is unique and has been used for 14 years helping 7F develop an exclusive list of client companies and over 1,000+ executive placements.

We deliver high-end, high paying opportunities to our candidates that we seek out personally for each of them.

Sincerely,
Tony French
VP Recruiters

[Note the “automated MATCH technology.” A painfully ironic coincidence — call it poetic justice — will arise later when we learn what happens to French’s business.]

Say what???

I’ve never seen any kind of NDA used by a recruiter that imposes such an onerous penalty. In fact, I’ve never known a recruiter to ask a job candidate to sign an NDA. Much of recruiting is based on reputation, good faith, and good communication. After all, confidentiality is a matter of mutual interest — a candidate doesn’t usually want what she’s doing with a recruiter disclosed, especially not to her current employer.

In John Rice’s case, he asked me to remove comments he’d posted on my blog because he’d signed the NDA and, after being threatened, feared he’d be liable to 7F for $25,000.

7f-trialOne Week Free Trial!

If French thinks you may balk, he tells you he’s going to discount his regular fee to only $1,500. If he’s not sure he’s set the hook deeply enough, he may offer you a “1-WEEK FREE TRIAL” — but you still must sign the NDA.

Slam-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am

Now it’s time for Mr. French to deliver.

After you’ve signed everything and paid up, it’s usually Allen that interviews you — always on the phone. If Allen likes you, the “partners” at Apax will hire you for the company they’re funding.

A tip-off

There’s never a face-to-face interview, or personal assessment of any kind. They just tell you you’re going to get a seven-figure job through e-mail and phone calls.

Putting aside the fact that real headhunters and recruiters always interview prospective candidates in depth, victims have described the “interviews” Allen himself — the client/employer — conducts as downright impertinent and vapid. Allen so ticked off John Rice that Rice ended the call — because Allen didn’t know how to spell the name of his own PE firm.

The kiss-off

A few days later, and after several phone calls and e-mails intended to burn up as much of the four-week contract term as possible, French always gives you bad news.

It wasn’t your fault, and the client loved you, but for some unknown reason the funding deal went south. It was the big PE firm’s decision, not Allen’s.

But French is going to present you to lots of other private equity firms for loads of other great jobs — while the contract quickly comes to an end.

If you call French to complain, your call is routed to James Chris — V.P. Account Management. Chris has a very thick accent that’s hard to guess at. Caller-ID identifies Chris’ number in Missoula, MT. He also e-mails from Ops.admin@sevenfigures.com — the same address used by a phony lawyer to threaten John Rice. Chris can’t help you with anything, but he explains that, going forward, all communications with 7F will go through him.

What is SevenFigureCareers or 7F?

After Tony French solicited him, one victim’s due diligence turned up a different kind of problem:

I contacted the business licensing offices for both Carlsbad and San Diego, CA and neither listed 7F as a company licensed to do business in the respective cities. Both offices told me if they are doing legitimate business in CA, they have to be licensed. I had them try every combination of SevenFigureCareers, 7FigCareers, Seven Fig Careers that I ran across doing my due diligence.

While this target was talking with authorities in California, I was talking with authorities in Texas. I was also calling 7F’s office — several times.

Where is SevenFigureCareers?

A call to the phone number listed on the firm’s website, (866) 621-1062, is always answered by a receptionist after a tell-tale call-forwarding click.

7f-600-broadwayThe receptionist will tell you the firm is located at 600 West Broadway, San Diego, CA. She cannot tell you which floor the business is on, or what the suite number is. Calls to three leasing companies in this attractive downtown office building — DaVinci Virtual Office Solutions, Real Office Centers, Allied Offices — reveal there is no such company in the building.

When I called and said I was Nick Corcodilos, the receptionist put me on hold then hung up. When I called back, another receptionist answered the phone and asked me if I was calling because I received an e-mail — and wanted to know who I received the e-mail from. But no one whose name I rattled off from the roster of 7F vice presidents was available.

A call to Art French’s cell phone number — shared by a victim from caller-ID — has a San Diego County area code (760) and an Encinitas, CA exchange, and is answered by voicemail.

Is there anybody in there?

One of 7F’s targets reports turning up something different:

I called Irvine Property Management, which owns the building at 600 W. Broadway, San Diego 92101, one of the addresses 7F lists. Nicki, at Irvine, stated 7F does have a public listing in suite 700, which is an executive suite, but does not have a physical presence there.

A SevenFigureCareers slideshow (http://www.powershow.com/view0/83660d-YjkwM/Sevenfigurecareers_com_Reviews_powerpoint_ppt_presentation) reveals another address: 2244 Faraday Avenue, Carlsbad, CA, telephone number (888) 630-3390.

7f-2244-faradayAnother slideshow is at http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/SevenfigureCareer-2889431-sevenfigurecareers-2244-faraday-ave-carlsbad/

When a scammer can’t show legitimate Google search results to victims, it creates phony credentials and posts them on websites like PowerShow and AuthorStream to support the scam.

The firm’s URLs include but are not limited to:

http://www.7figuresrecruiting.com/

http://www.7figrecruiting.com/who-is-sevenfigcareers

http://www.7figrecruiting.com/

A tip-off

Note the footer on the second of those two websites: “All rights reserved 2016 7F JobsinPE.” If that’s intended as a copyright notice, it is defective because it lacks the word “copyright” and the “c in a circle.” But it’s yet another name for the firm, yet another URL. These guys have loads of URLs. [UPDATE: After publication of this article, the above-listed websites were taken down.]

How SevenFigures hides

In his solicitation e-mails, Tony French puts your doubts to rest when you wonder about all the names his firm uses.

The firm is registered “under the product name 7F, which owns approximately 120 different domains we use when we get a confidential search assignment from a new PE / VC group.”

120 different domains. French says this allows 7F to find candidates confidentially. If that’s social engineering to help explain away what you find when you investigate this firm online, it’s the lazy kind.

Agile Capital Partners CB

Bloomberg provides a report on Agile, including the names of partners we already know. However, Agile seems to have no address.

7f-agile-bloombergAgile claims among its portfolio partners Accelio, Actel, ebay, Creatve TechnologY and Cray Computer. http://www.agilecapitalpartners.com/projects_past.php

According to its newer website, www.agilecapitalpartners.com, Agile has no address or phone number. On its older website (http://www.agilecpg.com/), Agile is located at Terry Francois Street in San Francisco, in Mission Bay. [UPDATE: After publication of this article, the Agile websites went dark.]

There is no street number because there is no Agile Capital Partners CB.

Mark Allen

However, Agile has Managing Partners. One of them is Mark Allen, whose bio states, “Prior to ACP, Mark was the president of Waller Capital Group, an investment bank specializing in mergers and acquisitions.” As of this writing, the only Google result for Waller is:

http://www.manta.com/c/mm8whvc/waller-capital-group-llc

It  gives an address at 9578 Pearl Circle, Unit 106, Parker, CO 80134. Here are the Waller offices, courtesy of Zillow http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9578-Pearl-Cir-UNIT-106-Parker-CO-80134/67454733_zpid/:

7f-waller-capital

A search for “Mark Allen” +”Agile Capital” on LinkedIn yields “Sorry, no results.”

Interestingly, Bloomberg has a bio on Allen that lists him as Managing Partner at Agile Capital Partners in “Bay Area, San Francisco, California.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=265898347&privcapId=22337494)

There’s no phone number, no address. But we learn that “Mr. Allen is responsible for due-diligence.” So are some of the people he has interviewed who spoke with me about him.

The Agile website says Allen has a partner, Jason Goldberg. Let’s take a look.

Jason Goldberg

Jason Goldberg’s bio on the Agile website says he “served as VP of American Health Systems, a management consulting firm specializing in the establishment of new insurance companies.”

AHS is on LinkedIn: Its headquarters are at 1121 Avenue of the Americas, New York City. This is the old McGraw-Hill Financial, in Rockefeller Center. The building’s leasing company has never heard of American Health Systems.

7f-american-health

But if you click on the company’s website link on LinkedIn, [LINK REMOVED because it now leads to a phishing site] , you’ll visit a link farm. Click the link again. Keep clicking. The target site keeps changing. Would you like to fill out a Comcast survey?

The bio also says Goldberg “serves on the Board of the Korean American Community Foundation.” The foundation’s Deputy Director, Brennan Gang, told me that’s not true. She’s never heard of Goldberg. But she had a good laugh.

RockHillCapitalPartners CB

Mark Allen is also a Managing Partner at RockHillCapitalPartners CB (RHCP). Check the About page at http://www.rockhillcapitalpartnerscb.com/about.

But don’t confuse this phony firm with the real Rock Hill Capital Partners: http://www.rockhillcap.com/. Executive Administrator Stacey Wells told me there is no Mark Allen at her firm — and she’s never heard of RHCP CB.

Until October 7, 2016 Allen had a partner at RockHill CB: Jason Goldberg. But Goldberg has disappeared. Here he was, a few days earlier:

rockhill-a

Goldberg was suddenly replaced by David J. Marx. But no worries — Marx is on the board of the Korean American Community Foundation, too.

In fact, Marx’s bio is the exact same as Jason Goldberg’s:

Allen’s second partner at RCHP CB is Christopher Blake. You’ll remember Blake from one of the e-mails above — Mark Allen cc’d him. Blake is a lawyer, but he doesn’t have a Doppelganger:

Nor did he attend Emory University, like his bio states. Could it be another Christopher Blake? No, Emory’s Office of the Registrar told me, “I did not find a record of any Christopher Blake attending Emory.”

There are two sections on the RockHill site that include many company logos — ostensibly clients that RockHill helped fund or manage. I researched several, but the smell was so bad, I climbed out of the wormhole to catch my breath.

Sienna Ventures

Another entity for which 7F fills executive positions is Sienna Ventures. Tony French forwarded to another victim a promising e-mail written by Alan Armstrong, Managing Director at Sienna. Armstrong’s address is listed as a.armstrong@siennaventure.com.

It’s the exact same e-mail written by Mark Allen from RockHillCapital Partners CB about the job candidate described in “The Set-Up” above. It includes the same personal note about Julie at the end. (Note to Tony French: The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away after it busteth you.)

Quoting recruiter.afrench@sevenfigcareers.com:
Alan,

Good talking to you and glad to hear Julie is doing better.  Here is that candidate I feel will fit nicely with the enterprise software leadership and advisory role we discussed.  The type of values you usually expect from a seasoned industry expert are what I see here with [name redacted].

Thank you

Tony French
VP Recruiters
7F
866 621 1062

French is so worried about Julie.

Bloomberg offers this company overview about Sienna Ventures: http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=22941

7f-sienna-bloomberg

And right at the top of the “People” list — there’s Mr. Alan Armstrong, Managing Director. But there’s no Sienna Ventures at 1 Harbor Drive, Sausalito, CA. A call to the number listed on Bloomberg — (415) 475-7530 — yields a pointless set of choices that lead nowhere and the suggestion to visit siennaventures.com.

You’ll find this browser message:

Error 522: Connection timed out

That’s because, like RockHill and Agile, Sienna Ventures doesn’t exist, in spite of what Bloomberg reports. Links for Sienna Ventures found on Google lead to “withdrawn” and “unverified” press releases on WDRB.com and PEHUB.com:

http://www.wdrb.com/story/32400338/sienna-ventures-launches-new-100-million-venture-fund

https://www.pehub.com/2016/07/3342518/

A recent story on Fortune.com, “The Ghost in The VC Machine,” reports that “Sienna Ventures is the latest fake VC firm.” Fortune tries to answer the question, “What’s happening, and who’s behind it?”

Unfortunately, the best Fortune can do is suggest the “Sienna scam” is designed to extract $99 resume-writing fees from suckers who apply for jobs that require resumes in a special format. John Rice should have been so lucky.

Argo LLC, Briarcliff Solutions and AG Becker

Research on these partners of SevenFigureCareers — Argo LLC, Briarcliff Solutions and AG Becker — leads down the same wormhole the others live in. You can do your own research. Here are some links to get you started. Bring breathing apparatus. Call Bloomberg and ask them what’s up with this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=29764366

http://www.briarcliffsolutionsgroup.com/

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/briarcliff-solutions-group#/entity

http://agbecker.us/

http://www.bloomberg.com/Research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=2920178

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=40423651

The devil is at the end of the story

The 7F wormhole doesn’t end here.

Where does the 7F-SevenFigureCareers wormhole lead? Who and what is at the bottom? Find out in the next installment — where an Ask The Headhunter lawyer will teach us all a thing or two about scams. And where you’ll learn how 7F got its wings clipped thanks to crowd-sourced information shared by the Ask The Headhunter community.

I won’t make you wait til next week. There will be another special edition shortly to report on the rest of the story. And a rancher friend of mine might drop by with a red-hot branding iron. 7F!

Many thanks to all who shared the information, files and documents that greased my path down the wormhole.

For the next part of the SevenFigureCareers scam story, see American Express fires recruiting scam merchant “7F.”

If you’ve had an encounter with SevenFigureCareers, a.k.a. 7F, please drop me a note.

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SevenFigureCareers: Had an encounter?

SevenFigureCareers, aka 7F, aka 7Figures

Readers have been sending me stories about their encounters with this firm — SevenFigureCareers.com — which charges thousands to set you up with clandestine private equity and venture capital firms for top-secret jobs at confidential start-up companies with interviewers whose names cannot be spoken.

Confidential

amex-partner

This firm’s business is so confidential that you’ll have to search carefully to find its own name on its website.

Top Secret

The FAQ is locked down, the Contacts page and “Who We Are” are hidden, but SevenFigureCareers proudly displays the American Express Partner logo, which inspires confidence.

If you’ve been solicited by Arthur French or Tony French, I’d love to hear about your encounter. Post here, or drop me a note about your encounter.

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HR Technology: Who’s Bad?

badWho’s really bad in today’s HR Technology world?

  • Companies that actually spend money on software that peeps at employees and people they want to recruit?
  • HR Technology companies that make the software?
  • Investors who could be gambling their cash away in Monte Carlo? (And seeing a show?)
  • HR executives who brag that they’re peeping at employees who might be doing the nasty nasty with some other employer?

Who’s Bad?

A reader sent me this gem today, from the Washington Post:

This software start-up can tell your boss if you’re looking for a job

I’d love your take on it. I see a few things in the story of Joberate, a company that:

“scrapes publicly available data from millions of individuals’ online social media accounts, or buys it from other parties, to assign what it calls a ‘J-Score’ that estimates their level of job search activity, likening it to a FICO score.”

(Yuck. Digital dumpster diving. Scraping the bottom. Bad.)

First, I’d love a list of Joberate’s customers — so I could advise you to quit your job there if you have one, because who wants to work for a company that invests more in peeking at what you’re doing than it does in making sure you’re a happy employee? But alas, Joberate’s customers don’t want to be identified. (Ah… busted doing the nasty nasty… send the PR manager into fits!)

Second, I’d like five minutes with the HR jokers who convinced their companies to buy into this tracking technology: Where are you hiding? Don’t you have a real job?

Third, I have a few words for “Brian Kropp, who leads human resources consulting for CEB, which has a venture capital arm that’s an investor in Joberate”: You’re an HR executive and an investor? Do you write HR Technology software?

Finally, to Joberate’s chief executive, Michael Beygelman: Close scrutiny and analysis of public media (I did a big-data dump of the Washington Post and ran it through my algorithm) reveals you should be looking for a new job, even though you’re not. Or maybe you are. Someone could check. If anybody cared.

HR Technology + LinkedIn = Really Bad

I always check out people worth writing about. Mr. Beygelman’s LinkedIn profile reveals something you really ought to care about. (Hey, it’s a public profile, anybody can look at it without scraping anything.) He wrote an article titled “LinkedIn changes to InMail policy create business case for Joberate technology.”

Here’s the nugget:

“Instead of sending blind InMails to potential candidates on LinkedIn, recruiters can now use Joberate technology to track job seeking behavior of people they’re interested in contacting.”

HR can be bad with Joberate, but LinkedIn helps recruiters be really bad. Now you’re going to see where all those silly LinkedIn In-mails you get from “headhunters” come from — an algorithm that links up Joberate with your favorite junk-mail purveyor:

found-you“When Joberate technology tells the recruiter that a person’s J-Score went up, it means that person’s job seeking behavior has increased, alerting the recruiter when it becomes the ideal time to contact a potential candidate. At that point a recruiter can send an InMail to a prospective candidate whose job seeking behavior and activities have just increased.”

Whoo-wee! Thanks to HR Technology, a recruiter (or your boss — whoever pays for Joberate!) found you looking for a job! Kinda like looking in your peephole.

Who’s bad?

Would you hire Michael Beygelman? Would you invest your money with Brian Kropp? Do you worry Joberate is watching you? Is it time to turn off InMails on your LinkedIn account? Do we really need more software companies?

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WTF! Inflatable Interviewer Dolls?

In the July 29, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader doesn’t feel like doing a solo job interview:

What do you think of an employer that uses a video service such as Montage to conduct its pre-screening of job candidates? I was recently asked to do this and found the experience awful. You don’t get to hear responses played back before submitting them, and there is no conversation with the interviewer.

Nick’s Reply

inflatable_manI think it’s bulltarkus. Any company that asks you to do an interview by yourself on video might as well hire an inflatable doll. If an employer asks you to invest your time to apply for a job while it avoids investing time in you, think twice before doing it.

In fact, I think the decision to interview you by yourself on video was made by an HR doll that was inflated by a very lonely venture capitalist who will end up unsatisfied. It’s all overblown.

The Journal Sentinel reported that Montage — the Talk To The Doll App you’ve encountered — was funded to the tune of $4 million by Baird Venture Partners and — get this — the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. All you need to know is this comment posted to the article: “Very simple technology that will have little value in the future. It’s a groomed Skype with recording abilities.”

Montage is a “solution” that only a puffed-up HR executive with too big a budget could love. Next time, insist that a human show up to interview you.

WTF is up with venture capitalists (VCs), anyway? Didn’t we just cover a bunch of venture embarrassments in the recruiting space? The Stupid Recruiting Apps just keep coming, and you need to watch out for them.

Montage is just one notch up from another new app, Yo. According to The New York Times, Yo raised $1.5 million from Betaworks and other investors. Yo makes a “new smart phone app whose sole purpose is to let people send text messages saying ‘Yo.’”

“People think it’s just an app that says ‘Yo.’ But it’s really not,” said Mr. Arbel, one of Yo’s founders.

Rumor is that several Fortune 500 employers will be notifying job applicants whether or not they were hired with one word: Yo. “We like to call it context-based messaging,” says Arbel. “You understand by the context what is being said.”

Ask The Headhunter readers will be relieved to get any sort of feedback after their job interviews. (See Question 4 in 4 Tips for Fearless Job Hunters.) But, can’t we send one-word Tweets without having an app that sends only one word? Yes?

cenedellaThis is not to suggest there aren’t some seasoned recruiting industry veterans getting funded today. The former CEO of TheLadders, Marc Cenedella, has what’s probably the winning entry in the Totally Useless Apps category — Knozen. Business Insider says it’s “a new iPhone app that lets coworkers rate each other’s personalities anonymously… it’s like Yelp is for restaurants.”

I’d rather have an employment app that’s like OpenTable — it would guarantee me a place at the table! VCs including FirstMark Capital, Lerer Ventures and Greycroft Partners gave Cenedella $2.25 million. And here’s where you — the job seeker — come in. Business Insider reports that, “Eventually, Cenedella wants his app to become a ‘personality API’ that businesses can tap into during the recruitment process.”

Uh-oh — Cenedella is talking tech: API. So’s Yo investor John Borthwick: “over time [Yo] has the potential to become a platform.”

You can’t make this stuff up. “Cenedella feels Knozen is an extension of the work he was doing at The Ladders, a career site that matched executives with job opportunities that paid six-figures.”

And how’s Cenedella’s last start-up faring? Today TheLadders is fighting a consumer class action in Southern New York District Court for breach of contract and deceptive practices. Word is his lawyer dolls are keeping Mr. C. out of breath.

“The Ladders was about showing the intangible qualities of yourself to employers,” says Cenedella. Yah — actually, it was about letting you lie about your salary to employers so they’d interview you for “$100K+ jobs.” (See TheLadders: Job-board salary fraud?) Does Knozen somehow guarantee honesty?

How does Cenedella explain that TheLadders is now a Hazbeen while Knozen is new and cool? “I got more interested in how people present themselves when they’re already in a job, not hunting for it.” No shit. One Business Insider comment sums up this start-up: “Stupid app. Nark app.”

I usually limit the levity and try to rise above all this. But when:

  • We start talking about a single word “that over time has the potential to become a platform;”
  • Employers want to snooze while you talk to the hand about a job; and,
  • A discredited recruiting entrepreneur gets over $2 million from venture capitalists…

Then it’s impossible to keep a straight face. We’re talking about a total of about $8 million worth of phony “recruiting technology” that you might face when you apply for a job.

So what’s my advice? Do what my mentor Harry Hamlin taught me: Use your judgment, and do the best you can. Then remember what my other mentor, Gene Webb, said: “Never work with jerks.” And don’t talk to inflatable doll interviewers.

Are new recruiting apps helping you land a job? Who’s become more stupid — venture capitalists, or employers? Want to buy an inflatable doll from me — to send to your interviews?

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