This company will suck the life out of you. To them you will be a faceless number that is expendable at any given moment. To set the record straight and as others have stated, ALL of the positive reviews are completely fabricated from internal staff to make the company look good. ALL of the negative reviews are spot-on and give a true representation of this company.
I have been with the company for nearly 5 years now, and after the merger I am looking elsewhere for employment. Instead of caring for the well being of their employees, this company thought they were financially smart by making their investigators do the work of 3 or 4 different positions in the Private Investigator field.
Here's the overall run-down
1) They want you to do the surveillance work which is 8 hours.
2) They will make your drive an hour away and NOT pay you for your travel time.
3) THEY WANT YOU TO DO ALL OF THE WORK OF A MANAGER. This includes holding contact with the clients, writing reports "tailored to each client"-meaning each report you write will be completely different and will take an additional hour to figure out how to do, plus an additional hour writing the report. Expect to work at LEAST 2 HOURS from home while writing the report. (They will also threaten to fire you for simple mistakes if your report isn't precisely client ready) You will also only be allowed to bill for 15 minutes when the report itself will take 2 hours.
4) You will be required to do most of the background investigations from home. This means an additional hour of your own time wasted on what should be handled internally from the office.
5) TOTAL HOURS WORKED PER DAY- (12-13 hours)
TOTAL PAY PER DAY (8.5 hours)
6) Almost no chance of upward mobility. You will be stuck in your position no matter how well you do in the field.
7) No raises based on performance. They will give you a 2-5% rise annually which you will have to fight for. This ads up to less than a dollar raise each year typically.
8) They pay below market value and expect you to work 3 time as much as any other company.
9) GPS tracking devices in their "company provided" cell phones. Yup, this means if you have to run to the bathroom you better pray no one is looking at the tracker at the time or you will be reprimanded.
10) "Smartpartner" or as it's simply known in the industry as "Dumbpartner". This is a report writing program that is the most repetitive structure you have ever seen. Expect to write the same thing at least 5 different times, spend hours trying to write it correctly, then more time after it malfunctions and loses all of your information.
*This review is not intended to bash on the company. They do pay on time and that is one of the perks the company. will offer you. They also do have a 401K program and very poor insurance program, (You'll be better off getting a policy on your own privately). You also may or may not get 40 hours per week depending on where you live.-chances are you won't.
I hope this review gives any potential new employees a better idea of what their getting themselves into. There are many better companies to be a part of. Do the research before making a decision.
These are primarily the reasons investigators are running away in flocks. This is a mock firm that has lost it's touch with good old fashioned investigative work and only cares about the numbers game.
They are a sinking ship that is bound to fail.
