Dont make the same mistake I did. - Recruitment Consultant Integra People Employee Review

Now where do I start? The Interview When I first received a call from HR regarding the job it immediately raised alarm bells. Never before has someone tried to sell me a job so hard. I was on the phone for about and hour and only managed to say about 3 words. The Interview after this was a 2 stage process. The first was quite bizarre. Again alarm bells were ringing as I was still being sold to. The interviewer gloated about the previous years earnings and even offered me a payslip in case I thought I was being told lies. Who mentioned lies? This gave me a slight insight into the paranoia amongst senior management. For the second interview I was asked to go to Warrington. I was initially interviewed in the boardroom by HR. Again, I said 3 words, before one of the directors walked in. Lets just say that I knew Integra was going to be one of the most challenging environments I'd ever had to work in. The Managers I mentioned paranoia. You wouldn't believe this but the Directors have video and audio recording equipment in the offices to watch the staff. Yes seriously! I didn't work in the Warrington Office but from what I have heard they would watch the live feed and listen to what the staff were talking about. People have even been interrogated about conversations. When I spent my first few weeks in the Warrington office I noticed that there was a very flat atmosphere. Everyone was almost putting on a brave face when really they were frightened to show emotion. On my second day I genuinely saw one of the Directors screaming and swearing because someone was parked too close to their car. I've never seen anything like it. In the other office I would receive phone calls from one manager at 9pm on a Friday night moaning about a manager and listen to the other manager moaning about the first manager during the day to other colleagues. It was unbearable. Absolutely not fit for management. If someone wrote a book called "how to not manage" the first Chapter would be called "Integra". Some of the behavioural traits from the Managers included crying when people didn't do as they said, moaning about the company, sharing information about staff illnesses and even asking inappropriate intrusive personal questions about your life outside of work. It was so unprofessional. They would swear and swear and swear all the time. One literally couldn't go a sentence without saying a swear word. I have honestly seen more decorum in Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays. No joke! The company seems want to have the same values as Vito Corleone from 'the Godfather'. Try Danny DeVito Corleone from the film 'Twins' The Job The basic pay seemed OK at first and the commission structure on paper seemed ok. The truth is that the amount of hours you're expected to be 'online' it works out you'll receive about £6 per hour. Maybe even less. You'll never see a commission breakdown and will be extremely disappointed all the time. The job is sold on the fact that you will never have to chase timesheets and all admin is done for you but that's a complete lie. You'll regularly get passive aggressive phone calls asking you to chase your workers every singe week for timesheets and information. The paperwork is a joke and the system is poor. Remember Windows 95? You'll be wishing you could use that rather than the software at Integra. It's like recruitment from the 90's. There is no praise, you'll get shouted at for not making enough calls whilst the people shouting at you make no calls themselves, deal with house accounts and write fake BD calls in the system. Your contracted hours are 8:30am - 17:30 but you will need to be at work for 08:00 and if you want to leave at normal time you be made to feel like a criminal. Most decent clients you'll want to approach will have bad history with Integra. Some ex clients have even been threatened with legal action by Integra. You'll be stuck dealing with terrible house accounts, poor clients and unreliable candidates. It was a regular occurrence to be shouted at by ex clients when you called them. You'll be expected to be receiving calls and texting candidates as early as 5:30am and even 10pm to fill awful jobs and make sure candidates go to work. If you don't you'll be told off and made to feel like you're a failure. I genuinely had to take 3 hours out of my Holiday to chase a candidate and explain to the manager why someone didn't turn up to a 3 hour night shift in London for about £9 per hour. You'll be expected to use your own car to travel to client visits. I had to drive to London several times and didn't see my expenses back until the end of the following month. Disgusting!! If you want my advice!!! Look at the current reviews. They're all posted in March and all have top stars. Why would everyone randomly do that? Use your brain. CLEARLY FAKE! You may see another 20 good reviews turn up after this post! Ignore them! You have got to trust me! If you don't believe me, get on LinkedIn and speak to any ex-worker. They'll tell you the same as me. If you're desperate for a job, if you can, try and hold on a little longer. I genuinely don't want to see anyone go through it. I saw some great people go through hell working there. I am now lucky enough to have an amazing job where I'm learning new things every day. I work with fantastic owners who treat their staff with respect and offer a great work/life balance. You can do the same. Believe in yourself and be confident Good luck in your job search!