r/expertnetworks

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone here has some experience with this company and can tell me if it's worth my time or just a data harvesting trap.

I recently applied for a Senior Buyer / Purchasing Manager role on LinkedIn. Today, I got a follow-up email from someone named James Lo at a company called Ethos (email came from jpollen@askethos.com).

The subject line was: "Expert Opportunity - Senior Buyer / Purchasing Manager ($75/hr, up to $1,500/week)".

The email says they were impressed by my application, but the next step is a "15-minute AI-powered screening call" where I have to talk to an AI agent about my experience and goals.

I did some quick digging and it looks like they are an "expert network" startup, not a traditional employer. But I'm seeing some mixed things online. Some people are saying the AI interview is completely broken, and others are suggesting they just use these "interviews" to train their AI model for free using your industry knowledge, and that the actual paid work doesn't exist.

Has anyone here actually gone through this AI interview? Did you ever get any paid consulting work out of it, or did your profile just sit "in review" forever?

I have 13+ years of experience in procurement and I really don't want to waste my time talking to a bot if it's just a way for a startup to harvest my knowledge for free.

Any advice or shared experiences would be hugely appreciated!

​Looking for user feedback! I may not immediately respond, but I value your input tremendously and will reply. Please also comment after the official AMA “open session” has ended. For context:

This caught my attention on r/ExperiencedFounders (and not in the best way, coming from founder James Lo, who worked as an entry-level analyst at McKinsey for 2 years after uni. This surely isn’t what I learned there, but everyone’s experience is different):

From Ethos founder u/jameslo-ethos —link in comments:

“As a consultant you basically collect as much data as possible and do a ton of analysis and package it into a bunch of potential decisions for somebody else, that's basically consulting.

Entrepreneurship is basically the polar opposite of that, you're in a situation where you have no data and you can't any analysis because usually it's just going to slow you down so you have to constantly make blind decisions yourself and experiment different stuff until something works. Very, very different.

In a lot of ways it's just the polar opposite, you need to learn how to stop bullshitting people and most importantly stop bullshitting yourself.”

👇

And so did this more thoughtful follow up question on r/askethos —link in comments (this is on par with a certain McKinsey partner, so I think I may know you, anonymous poster 😉):

“I’m trying to reconcile several marketplace numbers you’ve shared publicly here. Could you provide the actual marketplace funnel?

1. Total number of registered experts
2. Number of monthly active experts
3. Number and percentage of registered experts who have ever received at least $1 in payment
4. Percentage of applicants who ultimately receive a paid engagement
5. Median monthly earnings among experts actively seeking work, including $0 earners
6. Median monthly earnings among experts who receive at least one opportunity, again including those whose opportunities don’t convert
7. Median time from registration to first paid engagement

You’ve said Ethos is adding roughly 35,000 experts per week, receives tens of thousands of applications for each opportunity, and has paid experts more than $20M YTD.

You’ve also said that experts on Ethos earn an extra ~£4,500/month on average, with the top 10% earning £7,000+/month.

Those numbers may all be accurate, but without the underlying denominators, the earnings claims are difficult to interpret. In particular, “average expert earnings” can mean something very different depending on whether the population includes everyone seeking work or only people who successfully obtained paid engagements.”

Thank you all!

Just wanted to check if there is any other Australians who applied and gone through the interview process and practice tasted for the advertised Expert Campaing with Ethos without being able to actually complete any actual tasks and then I got this conclusion of services email stating " We're unable to continue your engagement on this campaign, as it isn't available to experts based in your current location due to operational limitations and regulatory restrictions." And I see they still continue to advertising the roles on LinkedIn and other platforms. Would really like to hear from others who might have applied or joined.

Got hit up by expertiq, met with retaining attorney, they chose me. Great! Never worked with his before so I'm trying to vett everything best I can. Emails check out. Attorney and firm check out. But they want to pay me via credit card to my venmo or wire me funds, with wire details over the phone. I decline, request payment by check instead, and send over retainer agreement through expertIQ platform file share with no response (yet).

Just wondering if others have successfully used this platform, and provided a W9 without consequence. I am concerned about uploading my SSN, even if it's on a W9, and even if it's through experIQ's file share.

I received a LinkedIn message from someone affiliated with GLG to do a call, but I'm feeling a little hesitant and confused about the whole thing. I have absolutely 0 knowledge or experience with this. What exactly happens after the call? Would I be subject to more calls down the line, or is just a one time thing? And how does the payment process work? I know these are things I could directly ask the associate that messaged me, but I wanted to get insight from other people's experiences. Thanks!

I’m listed on a few expert network platforms and have always been curious about what the experience looks like on the client's side.

When a client submits a request, what information are they actually asked to provide before it gets routed to potential experts?

I haven’t been able to find examples of the original request forms clients fill out... Does anyone here have visibility into the client side of GLG, AlphaSights, Third Bridge, Guidepoint, Coleman, etc.? Screenshots would be nice or even just a description of the questions/fields they use to figure out which experts a request should be routed to.

Do any of you know if companies have recently increased their ctc like a lot of consulting firms have increased it so is it the same with tech companies as well?

u/Dialectica- Hi Dialectica,

This is the second time I have completed a survey and have not received the payment link. The person from Dialectica who contacted me, as well as Expert Support, have not replied to my emails.

Is this a normal situation? I find this quite disappointing, especially as I have been collaborating with Dialectica for quite a long time.

How can I resolve this issue?

Is anyone else experiencing the same situation?

Regards,

Hey all, doing this on here since it’s an urgent request. Looking for experts who work in data center construction projects for hyper scalers (aws, Microsoft, any big one…). They’re wanting this week so super fast! Please PM me if this applies to you. If it doesn’t, leave your Reddit commenter snark in your head 😂

Are you a customer of Certerra, Terracon, or Atlas Technical Consultants for TIC Services?

Are you aware of Testing Inspection and Certification Services industry??

If yes can refer you.

Anyone here worked as a Non-Key Expert (NKE) on EU projects? (WeGlobal, DAI, GOPA, NTU, etc.)

Hi everyone,
I was recently approached regarding a potential Non-Key Expert (NKE) role on an EU-funded project and I’m trying to understand how these engagements work in practice.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually worked as NKEs (especially with companies like WeGlobal, DAI, GOPA, NTU, Cowi, IBF, or similar).

A few things I’m curious about:
How are NKEs usually paid? Daily rate? Monthly salary?
Do companies negotiate the rate with you or is it already fixed?
Are you hired as an employee or as an external consultant?
How many days do you actually end up working compared to what’s in the proposal?
What was your overall experience? Anything you wish you had known beforehand?

I’m particularly interested in experiences from the Western Balkans, but any EU project experience is welcome.
Thanks!