Falling in line and doing what you're told is significantly more valued than experience, competence, and even hiring people. There's a culture of "this is how we do things, get in line or get out." Promoting from within is typically a good thing. Here, it perpetuates institutional thinking and ensures that anyone who isn't like-minded is rooted out. Right or wrong is ignored. Even at the cost of good business.
Fall in line, and you can move up quickly. You may have to ignore your moral compass, but you will move up. If you come in with experience, they aren't kidding when they say they will have to reteach you everything you know.
That means treating people as dime-a-dozen commodities. Empathy, understanding, and common sense are thrown out to ensure candidates will accept your offer no matter what. Fear and pressure tactics, and cold-calling from management - sometimes right before interviews - are commonplace. Lying is deliberate, both internally and externally. Management will tell candidates and recruiters one thing while actively working against them behind the scenes if they feel another candidate is "closer to the deal."
They force same-day interviews and same-day offer acceptances with no regard for the human being. The last thing that is considered is the candidate experience. Second to last is the recruiter's. The worst part is that candidates don't want to work with people like this and under these conditions. These tactics prevent deals from closing and ruin candidate and recruiter trust, with no discernible business benefit. In a people-centric industry, this is the definition of crazy.
If your manager asks for genuine feedback, make sure you trust them and where that information may end up. You can quickly be outed as someone not drinking the Kool-Aid, a high crime at Mondo. The disinformation tactics are so engrained in the company culture that those who have been here long enough think it's normal.
That's why outsiders coming in are quickly suppressed or discarded. To them, a few competent recruiters may be successful doing it their way, but if they ask questions or push back on processes, they're not worth poisoning the innately poisoned culture Mondo has created.
The accountability is vastly different for the sales and recruitment sides of the business. As many as 20 recruiters work to fill one position. Instead of pushing sales to bring more roles, management focuses on micromanaging recruiter activity. Calls, videos, messages, and submittals are closely monitored and even recorded for roles that have very little chance of becoming hires. It's busy work and forcing conformity for the sake of it. And begs the question, why keep hiring so many recruiters?
Because there's a high likelihood that one of those 20 recruiters will fill the position, and the company will get its fee. If you stack enough of those fees, the recruiter salaries pale in comparison. Who cares that after needlessly spending weeks on a role, the other 19 recruiters won't make any commission? And if a couple of them quit? There are always easily controllable college kids to hire cheaply. It's an assembly line.
It's also common for positions to disappear after spending several weeks of resources on them. For example, a hiring manager will ghost the Account Manager, or an internal candidate will fill the role. The typical reaction from sales is, "Oh well, sorry." But if one candidate declines an offer, there is hell to pay for that recruiter.
They will be publicly berated and shamed. They will be asked to recount their failings and have repeated 1:1's with their manager to figure out the "learns" and "improve candidate control." The real problems are repeatedly ignored in order to scapegoat and gaslight the recruiter.
In the first scenario, 20+ people's time and energy are wasted; no one gets paid, and no one bats an eye. In the second, one individual candidate makes a personal decision to decline an offer, and the public lashing that recruiter faces is ruthless. It's hard to believe the consistently misplaced accountability, but it's embedded in the company fabric.
And the over-the-top, rah-rah attitude is beyond exhausting, unprofessional, and pointless. It’s insulting how thinly-veiled an attempt it is to mask the mental toll that recruiters face each day. Managers yelling “LFGGG guys” in the Google spaces doesn’t change the reality of deception and incompetence that makes it near-impossible to earn a sustainable living. In fact, it makes it worse.
That incompetence is never more visible than during the bi-weekly All-Hands Meetings. “Leaders” - especially the President - ramble incoherently in what can only be described as a weird attempt to motivate. The only motivation it gave me was to leave the company and work for leaders whom I respect.
The issue at Mondo is two-fold. If you're new to the industry, you're not learning translatable business practices that will work elsewhere. You may rise the ladder and even make a good living if the market allows. But I've seen too many people rage-quit after years of service to ignore it as being anything but a part of the Mondo career arc. And because of the insane way they operate, you will be less marketable to other companies within the industry. No matter how many years you manage to grit and bear the torment.
If you come to Mondo with experience, you need to forget everything you learned and likely why you joined the industry in the first place. To connect with and help people find jobs, while having the opportunity to make a lot of money. They don't like differing perspectives, and you will be ostracized if you're too vocal against the "Mondo Way."
If this sounds like a cult, that’s because it is. In the strongest possible terms, please look elsewhere for employment.