After a brief telephone interview, I drove down to Austin to interview in person with what turned out to be the CEO. My first impression of the office was an empty 'lobby' area with a stack of application forms and a note asking me (and whomever came into the office, I suppose) to fill out an application and wait to be called. This was a red flag - apparently the churn rate is pretty high here at SouthPointe. The CEO had basic interview skills at best, and didn't seem to have reviewed my resume' before hand. He asked basic questions regarding my history and seemed to be caught off guard when I would ask my own questions in response. When I did have the opportunity to ask questions, he was unable to provide any kind of substantive answers - for example, I asked what his plan was for SouthPointe, he first tried to answer with the promotion track for the position I was applying for, and then when I corrected him, he answered that his plan was to move someone else into his position and move on to the next project within the next 3 years. A cursory read-through of this company's website at southpointeconsultinginc.com indicates that this company is in some way associated with another organization, but no details are forthcoming. I asked the CEO to expand on this, and give me an idea of what that relationship was, and with what organization, but he equivocated and when pressed, answered that he legally couldn't tell me. These two answers were enough for me to end the interview right at that point. I made a big mistake by not spending enough time researching SouthPointe before I committed to the interview - the biggest red flag is the CEO's employment history. 8 years as a snowboarding instructor, some time as an analyst and salesman, assistant manager of an office, and then President/CEO of SouthPointe. That alone should have been enough to wave off of this interview as a waste of a day. I would recommend that everyone do their due diligence before even applying at SouthPointe, however, should you decide to take up with them, be sure to ask lots of questions. I'm not sure what they're up to here, and it could be totally harmless, but it's throwing enough red flags to warrant serious thought.

The first interview was a phone interview with the CEO. He seemed like a polite guy, but I felt like he set off a red flag by pointing out how the company is a direct marketing firm and I wondered why he was interviewing people when he had an HR manager. He said that he was going to make a decision on the hiring by the night of the interview, but I ended up waiting about two weeks before calling the company. He told me that they were going with other candidates.