Pros
My direct leader is an empathetic, understanding, experienced person. This is a large company with a good selection of career advancement opportunities. Depending on who you are paired with as a junior recruiter, you will have a good experience training and gain knowlege and exposure fast. They have responded fairly well to feedback from the annual survey, and from incidents - less drinking-based events, less drinking in general, attempts to promote wellbeing and mental health. They definitely look like they have tried - and they probably have considering it’s a small team of lovely non-leadership individuals taking the initiative to improve culture. Internal TA - one recruiter - they are wonderful. I feel like it’s difficult getting candidates over the line to work here, in my experience the hiring process was over 5 interviews in 6 weeks - for a bad, below market salary in an agency with low market share - so they are definitely doing their best.
Cons
Work life balance is actively discouraged. Unpaid overtime is encouraged. Navigating hybrid working is a minefield. Culture is iffy - good on the surface, but being a part of this organisation feels like walking on egg shells, and rumors spread worse than a high school - for lack of a better few words, misogyny and cattiness are rife. Understaffed on most teams - volume of work is good for the business but will burn out the recruiters/candidate managers. In this market, I understand high volume is inevitable - and so is the eventual burnout of entry-level recruiters. The mindset of the entire office seems to be stuck in the 90s - in every way, including the applicant tracking system (due to be replaced this year). The generation of new recruiters value their own health and wellbeing, their hobbies and personal time, and their sanity - and that is the way it should be. Honestly - there are probably better agencies to work for - beware that this agency might leave you a bit crushed, burned out, and without any desire to continue in recruitment. This agency also seems to be wildly against hiring anyone except young, ‘new blood’ for entry level roles, which is contributing to the perpetuating cycle of attrition. I understand hiring from within and promoting from within, but bringing on solely that demographic seems counterintuitive. To be fair, the salary is $55k inclusive, so I doubt there is room to hire anyone with more than a bit of experience at best. The pay increase for promotion is an extra $80-100 a month… sure, commission is better structured, but the base salary is still measly. Promotion criteria can also feel impossible to achieve, when balancing a high volume of work brought on by a consultant, with business development, and delivering to multiple roles from that business development. It shoots you in the foot - bringing on new work and contacts when you can’t focus entirely on delivery isn’t good for the brand and is not good for recruiter confidence or development.