Dilemma

[Kestrel]

The situation:

I am currently looking for a new job. I have a CPA license, but it is from a different state than where I am now living and I have not yet qualified to get licensed in my new state. I lost my previous job because the company I worked for closed - the owner sold the business. My remaining weeks of unemployment have hit the single digits.

I have just been presented an opportunity to interview for a position in the corporate-level internal audit department of a long-established major publicly-traded corporation. The auditing experience will fill a major gap in my resume, making me competitive with my peers and opening the doors for future professional growth in a wide variety of directions.

My dilemma:

This long-established major publicly-traded corporation is a multi-level marketing company.

Mind you now, this position is not a bogus distributor "business opportunity." This position is in the corporate offices of a company audited annually by a Big 4 accounting firm.

I'm inclined to go for it, get the auditing experience, and move on when a better professional opportunity arises.

What say you?

[Lambkin]

I once worked for a company which I thought was run by crooks (the CEO is now doing 25 years in a federal pen). I couldn't get out soon enough, and being in that environment made me very unhappy. But if I had faced any difficulty in finding work I would not have hesitated to stay.

So assuming your work for MLM Corp would not taint your resume, and assuming you can live with yourself being an employee of a company like that, all things considered, I would take the paychecks without hesitation.

In hindsight, I wish I had taken copious notes of my experience working for crooks.

[Cathulhu]

I'd keep looking for another job. Can personally attest I've turned down work repeatedly since I retired, so it's gotta be out there somewhere. Maybe you should move here!

[wserra]

So long as they don't ask you to do anything unethical, it's a job. A lot of folks here (certainly including me) don't think very much of the MLM industry. That doesn't mean that that an ethical person can't perform internal audits in an ethical manner.

The problem arises if that's not what they're looking for.

[Burnaby49]

I'd go for it. The company is a large publicly listed enterprise so it is entirely up-front in what it does and the area you are interviewing for has no direct connection to whatever you find distasteful about the company. If you get the job you get valuable resume-filler to help you get a more personally suitable job in the future and it gets you off the toxic long-term unemployment track. If it was 1998 again and ethically untainted jobs were falling out of trees you could afford to be picky but the times require some reasonable compromise. If I was in your shoes I'd grab the opportunity if it meant helping future prospects elsewhere and giving you a current decent income.

[JamesVincent]

Personally I dont see an issue with it. If anything since your helping with accounting and audits then youd see if they were legit or not while your getting a paycheck. A lot of the big MLMs have a home office to run their business and hire real people to staff them. Send Out Cards has a huge complex in Salt Lake City with their own printing facility. I guarantee the people running the machines arent distributors.

[Kestrel]

Thank you all. I also have serious reservations about this industry, but I'm sending my resume over to the MLM company anyway. (Just imagine - I could be one of the few to have a genuine income guarantee from an MLM.)

A real interview is a real interview, after all. I can "practice interview" in the mirror all day long, but the feedback from a real potential employer is worth the experience every time. It's better to make a mistake in front of a less-than-ideal employer and learn from it, than to lose a perfect position elsewhere because I lack live interview experience.

If they do offer me the job I don't have to accept. But if I don't have any better offers, working there will keep the electricity turned on while I keep looking for that ideal position. Wouldn't want to lose my internet service and access to Quatloos.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...

If they do offer me the job I don't have to accept. ...

Under your current circumstances I think you do.

Consider that your profession has an obligation not all that dissimilar to attorneys. As long as your client/employer does not require you to engage in unethical or illegal conduct, their end-product and the public opinion of it or their marketing process is irrelevant.

I would venture to say in this climate that an established, publicly-traded "MLM" company with an internal auditing operation is probably as, if not more "clean" than some major banks; the financial institutions just have better PR.

[Gregg]

Take the job, a MLM hiring an honest accountant can't be all bad.