Never join Alten! - Recruiter ALTEN Employee Review

1.0
18 Oct 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You'll hate every second there so much you'll get your life priorities straight.

Cons

Where to start? - You're not treated as a person but just as a means of getting figures and numbers. - VIE with years of experience have the same job as trainees. Even if some newcomers have more experience than the managers, we need to "teach them life" as I was told, and no new idea is welcome. - Don't trust the job description that implies for instance school relations, it's only for the favorite ones. All you do is source CV and 10 minute phone interviews all day long. - As looking for my replacement when I quit, I was explicitely asked to screen by nationalities. I forwarded good French CV that were discriminated. It was my first time as a recruiter I had to let some candidates know "sorry but you don't have the right nationality for them". - You need to contact candidates for whom you know you have absolutely no job but "that's how the model works, we need their information in our data base". Then they pretend to have recruited them to lie to clients and get more business. - You'll be treated as a kid: not allowed to whisper to your colleague in the middle of the open space, not allowed to speak your own language, candies as a gift if you win a challenge, gossips on with whom you're eating lunch / where / what time... - no benefits at all

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ALTEN Response
6y
First of all thank you for taking the time to write a review. Glassdoor is an open platform enabling employees or former employees to write comments and rate their current and/or previous companies for improvement purposes. It is thus necessary to keep a strong level of measure and seriousness in the feedback provided. The lack of substance, honesty and accuracy of the comments on this review, cannot unfortunately be considered as a constructive feedback and the foundation of improvements but simply as the spread of unjustified hatred. Let’s address the main points through a factual way: 1 – “Hate every second here”: I strongly believe that there is always something positive to retrieve from every experience, however challenging or difficult it may be. What makes the difference between people who succeed in life and those who fail, is actually the capacity to focus on the positive aspects and use them to move forward in a constructive approach. 2 – “Not being treated as a person/means of getting figures”: at Alten we are very committed to putting a strong focus on our people, from the on-boarding when newcomers have a daily or weekly follow-up with their manager to provide them with the means, tools and advice to succeed in their role. We ensure regular one to one meetings between every employee and their manager once the induction period is completed and have an open-door policy so that anyone can come to see their manager when they have issues or topics they need to discuss. Then, we do have high ambitions to keep developing at a fast pace and becoming leader on the UK market, meaning we closely monitor our activity through KPIs. People’s capacity to achieve their targets (with the support provided) will lead to them being offered to diversify their day to day job or being promoted, as in any meritocratic organisation. 3 – “VIE with year of experience have the same job as trainees”: let’s put it the other way around. We actually strongly believe that the best way to learn and develop is by practicing, hence we don’t see internships as roles where you only do the admin or boring tasks. We are striving to give our trainees a chance to have the same level of responsibilities as Junior Recruiters, which has proven to work well as they all leave with the feeling of having learnt a lot and grown during their experience at Alten. 3 – “No new idea is welcome”: all new ideas are more than welcome, and as part of our continuous improvement approach, we are always opened to innovative ideas and our capacity to adapt is actually one of our biggest strengths. Then obviously, we cannot constantly change our processes, especially when they have proven their efficiency. 4 – “Screen by nationalities”: Alten is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we are actually proud to have a very multicultural company in the UK with more than 35 nationalities in our teams. Our selection criteria in any recruitment process are based on the people’s skills (technical and soft skills), experience and potential. 5 – “Contact candidates for whom you have no job” & “Lying to clients”: Started from scratch in 1988, Alten is now present in 28 countries, employs more than 34,000 people and works with the biggest and most prestigious companies in the world. I am sure you will understand that this growth and success story has only been possible through one approach: putting clients and our people first. We have no interest nor need/will of lying. 6- “Gossip”: the concept of work gossip is certainly not a new one, then it is about being able to take a step back, and not giving too much credit to it. 6 “No benefits at all”: we actually offer some benefits like medical and travel insurance, pension scheme, cycle to work scheme, among others, so again, this allegation is not true. In a nutshell, I can see that most of these topics are the fruit of a lack of communication and misinformation about the company. I actually identify this as an improvement opportunity. Your review tells me that: Although Alten is striving to make sure all necessary messages, processes and policies are communicated as accurately as possible, it seems important to keep on getting better at it. On the longer run, I would advise you to tackle any issue/frustration at its ignition so that it does not become disproportionate.

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