Personal / Professional Ethics Changes

I think it is a two-way street. An organization's ethics can change personal ethics and vice versa.

Having over 15 years of sales experience I know that salespeople are not always seen as the most ethical people. I made it a point to work for organizations that saw the value in the customers they serve to do the job with high ethical standards. I recently had a job interview for a sales and marketing position. I was told this interview was with an organization that valued customer relationships and had the goal of servicing their customer with integrity. I went for a second interview which involved riding along with and shadowing a current rep in the organization. At the first stop I watched this rep walk into an account and lie to person working there to get information from them about the business. This was the case at several businesses we visited. This rep then proceeded to inform me that the three things the organization valued was Character, Honesty and Integrity. None of which had this guy shown in the time I had spent with him.

I would hope that he had a personal understanding of the meaning of these values but he seemed to have lost sight of that in his time with this particular organization. I did not continue my interview because I saw the possibility of the organizations ethical standards having a negative affect on me and my family.