Deja vu-hahhahhahaha!!!!

An email I just received via my resume on Monster.com:

Dear,

I’ve recently obtained your resume from the Monster Board and I was very pleased when I read it. I believe that you possess many of the skills and qualities that are consistent with some of our most successful Financial Services Representatives here at MetLife.

I am seeking to expand our Agency and I would like to share information with you regarding a career opportunity in the Financial Services industry that you may find quite interesting. We can offer…

– A sales training program – one of the best in the industry today, with financial support during your initial stages of development.

– An attractive compensation plan that rewards salespeople who consistently produce substantial amounts of high-quality business.

– An extensive benefit program that currently includes a healthcare package, disability income coverage, life insurance, a savings and investment plan and retirement benefits.

Please contact me by e-mail a*****@METLIFE.COM so that we can arrange a mutually convenient time to meet each other to discuss this career opportunity further.

Sincerely,

A**** G****
Agency Director
Bridge Financial Group
212-946-####
One Penn Plaza
4th Floor
New York, NY 10019

MetLife is an equal opportunity employer.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York, NY 10010
L0107HJZ4(exp0706)MLIC-LD

Bad enough it’s a half-assed form letter that didn’t even fill in my name, but they obviously didn’t really read my resume or they would have seen that I’ve already been down this road with American Express Financial Advisors and either referred to that or not bothered contacting me. I figured after AEFA’s similar approach to recruiting – resume bank searches for people with marketing backgrounds – had failed so miserably, no one else would be doing it, but it’s the third such email I’ve received in the past six months, all from different companies.

Interestingly, AMEX recently announced first that they were spinning off AEFA, and then that they were dropping “American Express” from its name, rebranding it as Ameriprise Financial. Considering one of their biggest selling points to prospective advisers and clients was the American Express brand, that’s a potentially crippling move for their current advisers and their recruiting efforts, not to mention existing clients who were wooed by being under the AMEX umbrella.

If you work with an AEFA financial adviser, you better grill them about their personal next step because the likely exodus this will cause could leave you high and dry, shuffled off to some low-rung schlub no other company wants to poach. Conversely, if you’re a valuable client, you may get pitched to move your assets to whatever new company your adviser jumps to, a situation that could go either way depending on a lot of fine print they won’t be encouraging you to read.

I hate the financial services industry!

Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is the Chief Content Officer for LibraryPass, and former publisher & marketing director for Writer’s Digest. Previously, he was also project lead for the Panorama Project; director, content strategy & audience development for Library Journal & School Library Journal; and founding director of programming & business development for the original Digital Book World.