Thoughts about the Chicago Office - Recruitment Consultant Michael Page Employee Review

If one of my friends asked me if I recommended this role, I would vehemently urge them not to apply. With so many antiquated processes in place and a stressful, KPI-driven environment I cannot, in good conscience, say that I'd recommend it. 1. Legacy Technology: The technology tools offered are outdated and hinder consultants from doing their job. The company has their own CRM system for America and a separate one for the rest of the world. So, as you can imagine their maybe contracts with firms that other offices don't know about (don't you want your consultants to make more money?). There are also duplicate contacts and companies in the system. In terms of the rest of their tech stack, there's also no sales automation tool or internal communication tools. 2. Market/Team: Some markets are more profitable and easier to close deals in. If you’re interviewing for a consultant position here, make sure to ask thorough questions regarding the team and market you’ll be joining (team history, # of teammates, average deals in a month, etc.) For example, there are two teams in the office which historically have fallen short of their revenue targets in the past year. One is no longer a service line in the Chicago office, while the other team had high turnover and team members switching to different markets that are more profitable. These markets faced different challenges than other teams which limited/delayed their potential for bonus and career advancement. 3. Turnover: Recruitment will always be a high turnover industry. For the past year, the team has been saying they're moving into an 80+ person office. That being said, the truth of the matter is that they've hovered 35-40 in headcount but have had at least 18 people leaving in the past 12 months (yes, I counted). While people leave MP for many different reasons, maybe it’s time to reflect on WHY almost 50% of these people didn’t see success in their role or didn't feel valued enough to stay at the firm? It’s not always because they’re not good “sales” people or don’t have the drive to rise to the challenge as we have sometimes been led to believe. 4. KPI driven environment: You will stand up at the board every single day and list off your activity from the previous day, where you’re at towards your weekly/monthly targets, and provide your “goals” for the rest of the day. Weekly KPI expectations are 100 emails a week, 50 new contacts, 10 leads in the system, 2 client meetings, 20 calls with hiring managers in your space, 5 internal meetings with candidates, 600 phone minutes OR 150 dials, 15 resumes sent to clients, and 5-7ish candidate interviews with clients. Quality is often sacrificed for quantity (e.g. you can’t personalize the 100 emails at the beginning of the week efficiently and it isn’t even in the same font). 5. Work/Life balance. Many people have mentioned this previous, and while I think work/life balance always depend on the individual. Yes, you get a lot of PTO, but you have to take it when your manager's okay with it and it's convenient for your entire team? I wouldn't want to have my boss dictate when I can or cannot take time off. I personally was not fired up about being in the office at 8 am every day to after 6 pm, and I don't think most work people are. When you're competing with so many other Chicago sales cultures--it's hard to compete, I get it. But offering more flexibility on work from home, o 6. Professional Dress. Not necessarily a con for everyone either. I liked the sense of ownership and pride dressing professionally every day. What I didn't enjoy was forcing people to pay $5 to dress down on Fridays for a charitable cause. Yes it sounds like a nice gesture but the business casual dress is just normal at other companies...plus I think hounding people to venmo or pay every Friday just fosters a negative environment. The only other con I think of is promoting people to manager experience not based on skill-set but based on how much they billed. I think there needs to be a higher standard and vetting process. More than just 1 training course.