Run FAR FAR FAR away - Recruiting Manager Emerald Search Partners Employee Review

Apologies as this will be a tad long but as one of the owners of Emerald Search Partners, I believe it important to respond appropriately to several of the allegations and misrepresentations listed in this review and you can't do that with quick, cute bullet points. For context, we are a small, boutique legal recruiting and staffing company with over 85 years combined recruiting experience and we care deeply about our employees, their development and success. We are in the business of not just getting our candidates jobs and providing the best legal talent to our clients but in providing direct, comprehensive feedback with our employees on how best to represent those candidates and get them in front of our clients. Along with constant training and constructive feedback, we have invested in the best technology available along with marketing and advertising to assist our employees in their success. As a team, we have placed thousands of legal professionals with hundreds of law firms and companies in the Puget Sound over the years and our record and reviews from clients and candidates speak for themselves. But let’s be honest here; recruiting is not for everyone. It is a tough job with a lot of moving parts, and yes, we have a lot of phone calls, emails, and 1:1 conversations with our recruiters daily. We also meet several times a week as a team regarding recruiting strategies, best practices, and to workshop different conversations about what our candidates are looking for and matching them to a client’s need…and vice versa. This reviewer mentions, “no one has any professional boundaries and will call you on vacation, when you’re sick and after hours.” Yep, that does happen from time to time and while we try to limit this as much as possible we ask our recruiters to have a “Vacation Action Plan” if they are going to be away or unavailable so that others may pick up the conversations. But the reality is that time and information are of vital importance in recruiting and if you are representing a candidate who is receiving multiple offers or who is waiting to hear feedback from an interview, you need to share that information in real time and sometimes that might be after hours. Waiting for someone to get over a cold or until the weekend is over is not acceptable in our industry. Sorry (not sorry) if you must take a call or answer an email at 5:30 p.m. or on a Saturday. More often too, a candidate who is currently employed can only talk after work hours or on a weekend. It is what it is, and we are very transparent in setting those expectations. If someone is looking for a 9-5 job as a recruiter, good luck, they don’t exist! Frankly, show me a recruiter who does not take or make phone calls or emails after hours, on weekends or during holidays or vacations and I’ll show you an unsuccessful and soon to be unemployed recruiter! Also, this reviewer states our compensation is basically 100% commission and benefits are terrible. For our employees, we do not hide anything regarding compensation and benefits. They are both very good and above industry standards/averages! Our employees are provided a competitive base salary and get paid every two weeks. You also have the ability to earn substantial bonuses/commissions upon successful placement of candidates, and we very clearly outline what that process is from the outset! During the interview process, we dive deep into the numbers, and show them how to get there! After being hired, we also provide a monthly breakdown of placements, fee's collected and walk our employees through their own personal comp model! To thereafter claim we hid the compensation breakdown during the interview process is flat out wrong! Most likely, the reviewer did not understand the compensation model and was embarrassed to admit their lack of understanding. More importantly too, unlike most other staffing and recruiting companies, we do not hold bonuses/commissions for months and months on end during some elongated guarantee period but rather we pay them out faster than industry average! We also have immediate and significant benefits including the following: • 3 weeks of PTO, w/ an additional week off between Christmas and New Years (in 2025, we were closed SEVEN days due to how the holidays fell during the week) • The company covers most of the monthly premiums on Med/Den/Vis for the employee with a well-known national plan • Paid parking and/or ORCA pass for days when coming into the office • Cell phone reimbursement • 401k with employer Match • The ability and flexibility to work from home • We set up all our employees with monitors and a brand-new laptop in office and home We also have held multiple company get-togethers throughout the years that have included Mariners’ games, Bowling, Cooking Classes, Spa Days, Wine Tastings, team lunches, birthday and anniversary get-togethers, and happy hours, etc. We’re a busy but fun place to work! This reviewer also states that, “They’ve had about 5 employees leave within the last three years the team only consists of 5 team members minus the owners, so it’s NOT rare internal opening.” We're not sure where this person is getting their information, but we have not had 5 employees leave over the last 3 years, we’ve had 3; one decided they wanted to go back to being a recruiting coordinator and we assisted them securing a new position with one of our clients! One left because they wanted to be a teacher and the other was not the right cultural match with our company and we parted amicably. The tenure of our team is incredible for the recruiting industry, and we have 2 recruiters who have been with us over 10 years, another will be celebrating 5 years shortly! Our other recruiters are a bit more junior in their career but have already seen tremendous success. Clearly our good talent aren't the ones leaving. Lastly, my partners and I, along with our employees, are truly saddened by this review. To hear that someone was so miserable as to make themselves sick and lose their hair without ever coming to us to express those concerns is unfortunate to say the least. We have always prided ourselves on not just communication but in accountability and availability. We wish this individual would have come to us with any concerns they felt were needed to be addressed. I personally had a check in meeting every week with this person for their first 4 months and not once did they ever convey their struggles or dissatisfaction. Regardless, we wish them well in their future endeavors and hope they find peace.