In an effort to “motivate” employees when morale is at an all-time low during an economic downturn, management created a presentation listing the names of every previous recruiter who left to join a competitor and has since been laid off. The delivery manager said if you don’t like your situation, you should just work harder. There was zero accountability for the excruciating pressure we are subject to given that the base pay is unlivable.
In general, management will denigrate former and current workers if they aren’t in the room; they are used as examples to show that Apex never does wrong so individuals who are unsuccessful are just failures who didn’t work hard enough.
The RTO policy is unevenly enforced. While most everyone is told to be in-office three days per week, the company’s top earners never go in and no one blinks an eye. In general, if you are high in spread, rules don’t apply to you but the moment you face attrition, buckle up because you are now among the lowly devalued “under performers” and everything you do heretofore is subject to scrutiny.
The base pay is inhumane. Your commission will always ebb and flow with contractors quitting or clients cost-cutting, so it’s fair to expect fluctuations. As such, you should be able to fall back on a livable wage however the base pay is less than a full-time minimum wage worker’s salary. You cannot support a family on that, so many have to quit.
Once you leave, your portfolio of business is handed to someone else on the team. S/he is expected to manage it with the same effort, but will receive zero commission. While Apex is still billing the client, instead of compensating the newly assigned recruiter or account manager, Apex deems it “ghost spread,” withholds commission from the front office worker, and keeps it for themselves.
TL;DR: Toxic culture + shockingly low compensation
