I received an email from a company called ExecRanks that helps you find positions on corporate boards. (Board of Directors, Advisory Board etc.) I was told, “you will make a great fit for a number of the Board Opportunities we have available.” So I agreed to setup a time for a quick phone call to discuss.

I was thinking this is either a company that gets paid by corporations to recruit board members or a company that charges people to find board opportunities. Turns out it is the latter. For $200 a month they will allow you to search their database and apply for corporate board positions.

I was happy to entertain the idea of talking with a company interested in adding me to their board, but I certainly wasn’t interested in paying to find a board spot. Hey, I am sure they must have some (1?) people that use the service and like the results, but it just wasn’t for me.

After doing some googling, I found a lot of people out there like that were first intrigued and delighted to be asked about being on a board and then discovered it was a sales pitch. Some of the stories I read were about people who bought the pitch and started paying for months and months only to get nothing out of the ‘database.’

by Chris Doelle

PS. If you do hear of a company that needs to fill out their board with someone of my particular talents, feel free to pass it along.