My experience Interviewing for Dave Ramsey

I am in a sense, a recovering Dave-a-holic. Right after college, I married into several thousand dollars in credit card debt, and happily added several thousand more in the infancy of my marriage.

This was in the early 2000s, the beginning of Dave Ramsey being mainstream in a sense. I joined his website, posted on the forums, listened to his show daily. In fairness, his method for getting out of debt works. But once you are out of debt, it just isn't the best method.

The one thing that I could never completely get was the no car loan deal. My mind would always go to the math. I'm paying 0.9% interest- I can make more than that in an online savings account. I also put everything on an AMEX every month, and paid it off, earning a bunch of points that enabled me to do a few extra things in life.

My wife got a job at Vanderbilt, and the opportunity to get a master's degree. I wasn't making enough money for this to even be a thought - so we moved to Nashville and I started interviewing for jobs. Dave's company headquarters are in Franklin (Cool Springs area) and his company was booming. They had a couple of opportunities that I qualified for, so I sent in my application.

We were set to move to Nashville in a week when the phone rang on a Tuesday They immediately wanted to do a 45 minute phone interview in the middle of my work day with no appointment. I thought it was strange, but I closed my office door and did it. Nothing out of the ordinary.

They followed up with an email a couple hours later, asking if I would be willing to come to Nashville on Thursday. I simply said that we were planning to make the move that weekend, and it would be better for me to push it back to the Monday.

The guy literally said. "We like you, but thats not a good attitude to have. We have other candidates that could be here in 20 minutes if we called them." I relented and said I would be there Thursday at 1. Drive 6 hours there, interview. Drive 6 hours back, while my wife got everything ready for the move.

Got up there and met with my would be supervisor. Had a degree in mechanical engineering from an unaccredited college (Pensacola Christian) and was working in marketing for Dave Ramsey. He wanted to take me to lunch. We went to Moe's Southwest Grill that was right around the corner. He small talked me then took a cell phone call for 30 minutes. Came back in and asked if I was ready to go back - thinking I would be continuing the interview.

That was the interview. I asked a few questions in the lobby about benefits and the like (There are none. No health insurance. A 401k but no match. Just $200 in free Dave Ramsey swag every Xmas to give as gifts). He also told me that should I be offered the job (which he thought I would be), that they would run a credit report and I would ceremoniously cut up my credit cards in front of the entire staff on day one. If I had a car loan, I had 60 days to pay it off or sell it and buy something with cash.

We ended up making the move that weekend. I had no idea what to think. I wasn't comfortable with the whole thing. I ended up getting a good job somewhere else, and about three months later, got the call with the offer. It was almost a third of what we talked about. Said I needed $60k, they offered $25k, which was laughable. They tried to sell me on the benefits of working for Dave Ramsey again. Told them I couldn't take that little of money. Immediately made the offer $45k. I declined again, and they called me back with a 60k offer.

It was really strange. I ended up meeting some people who had worked for him in the past and they told me horror stories of "he considers talking to you in the hallway as a benefit." and that if someone ever leaves the company, they are shunned. Current employees are not allowed to speak to former employees under threat of job loss. People were fired for minor things. It was like a prison, someone told me.