The Cellar - View Single Post - Best/Worst Short-Term Job

Clodfobble · 06-29-2006, 04:17 PM

I worked for a temp agency on and off for several years in college. One of my gigs was at a market research company--opinion poll telemarketers, basically. A whole bunch of extra temps had been brought in just to fill this extremely difficult contract: Sunny Delight wanted a focus group of 20 people, who would come to some local area and each be paid $50 for their time. The difficulty was in the qualifications for the focus group. They insisted that each member

1.) Be female, and married.
2.) Have at least 2, and no more than 4, children between the ages of 3 and 12, and no additional children outside that range.
3.) Purchase at least 1 bottle of Sunny Delight every week.
4.) Purchase said bottles only at a Super Wal-Mart (regular Wal-Marts didn't count.)
5.) Score at least 80% on the "outspokenness" section, like "When you're in a social group, do you usually speak your mind or just go with the flow?"

There were more qualifications, but those were the big ones that knocked out most people (out of the small oercentage who were even willing to take the time at all to find out if they qualified for the focus group). In addition, they wanted 5 of these people to be willing to participate in a "shop-along," where someone from Sunny Delight would walk behind them on one of their typical shopping trips with a videocamera, so they could see exactly how these people purchased their Sunny Delight.

There were about 30 of us, cold-calling people from 5:00 to 9:00 in the evenings. Eventually, we did get them all. I personally pulled in 5 people, way more than anyone else, because by day three I started just prompting people for the correct answers.

06-29-2006, 04:17 PM	#3
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	I worked for a temp agency on and off for several years in college. One of my gigs was at a market research company--opinion poll telemarketers, basically. A whole bunch of extra temps had been brought in just to fill this extremely difficult contract: Sunny Delight wanted a focus group of 20 people, who would come to some local area and each be paid $50 for their time. The difficulty was in the qualifications for the focus group. They insisted that each member 1.) Be female, and married. 2.) Have at least 2, and no more than 4, children between the ages of 3 and 12, and no additional children outside that range. 3.) Purchase at least 1 bottle of Sunny Delight every week. 4.) Purchase said bottles only at a Super Wal-Mart (regular Wal-Marts didn't count.) 5.) Score at least 80% on the "outspokenness" section, like "When you're in a social group, do you usually speak your mind or just go with the flow?" There were more qualifications, but those were the big ones that knocked out most people (out of the small oercentage who were even willing to take the time at all to find out if they qualified for the focus group). In addition, they wanted 5 of these people to be willing to participate in a "shop-along," where someone from Sunny Delight would walk behind them on one of their typical shopping trips with a videocamera, so they could see exactly how these people purchased their Sunny Delight. There were about 30 of us, cold-calling people from 5:00 to 9:00 in the evenings. Eventually, we did get them all. I personally pulled in 5 people, way more than anyone else, because by day three I started just prompting people for the correct answers.