Warning from a networking event I hit up last Tuesday

Went to a tech mixer downtown Seattle. 50 people in the room, 45 of them just selling their own courses or MLM stuff. Nobody actually hiring. One guy tried to pitch me a 'mentorship program' for $500 a month. Total waste of 3 hours. Anyone else run into these fake career events that are just sales pitches in disguise?

2 comments

2 Comments

knight.diana1mo ago

Okay so I counted at least 12 people handing out "business cards" that were just QR codes to their Instagram sales funnels. The whole thing felt like a thinly veiled Amway convention but with worse coffee and no free snacks. I actually got cornered by a guy who claimed he could "help me scale my income" but then spent 10 minutes explaining his essential oils side hustle. Honestly though, is it really that big of a deal? You walked out with no money spent on his garbage program and a free lesson about checking the guest list beforehand. I just think calling it a "fake career event" is a little dramatic when you could have left in the first 15 minutes like I did.

lee7331mo ago

Walked into one of these things last year thinking it was a legit local career fair. Ran into three different people who kept trying to pitch me their "passive income" courses and one guy who was basically selling vitamins out of his backpack. I stuck around for the free coffee though, which turned out to be instant stuff from 2019. Your mileage may vary but I figure it's like getting a bad flu shot - you walk away grumpy but you learned something about reading the fine print. Still salty about the lack of snacks though.