Last week I ventured out to “an information session” run by a talent agency.  They had advertised for extras on job boards recently and I figured it was worth a look.

Randomly distributed on the seats in a hired function room, were flyers containing lots of testimonials.  Always positive.  Always fairly light on information.

The session was run both both of the company’s principals.  Did this mean they had no staff to dedicate to running info sessions or they had no staff?  If no staff they must have been raking in the cash.

After an hour of saying what they did (provide extras for TV and movies in Melbourne only), showing lots of testimonials and quickly glossing over how for $295, we could register with them, of the 60 or so people in the room, about 40 signed up.

After the session I asked how soon I could expect a return on my investment. They could not given me any answers and given I am currently Government funded due to being unemployed, the $295 is not within my budget.

The cynical side of me thinks there were a few plants in the room who went up immediately to the guy with the ATM machine and eagerly handed over their money.  If so, a great use of their non speaking extra pool.

With a conservative 35 of those who attended the information session singing up, that netted the talent agency $10325 for an hour’s work.  Take away room hire (say $500) and the photography shoot for everyone’s online profile (say $150 per person, bulk deal), the agency still made a little under $5000.  If two of those sessions are run a week, even without their 20% commission on any extras they place, the two human agency would be raking in the cash.