Mackenzie Stuart reviews about "12 hours"

Many previous reviews have hit the nail on the head. Firstly, just ask yourself why everytime there is a negative review, there soon follows a spate of positive reviews all echoing the same tune posted on the same day? It is a response by the director's to continue the facade that the company is somehow great to work for. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no graduate scheme, all the training involves is manager's most of whom have no idea how to manage let alone train, taking turns talking to grads for a few hours a week about how to navigate the inevitable web of lies you will have strung for yourself about how you are 'an expert in your market' and 'have many leading clients'. Just some of the many lies spun. Nobody is an 'expert', realistically the only knowledge most people have of their market will be whatever they managed to look up on the internet for a few hours a week in what little spare time they have. 'We do 90% of our work retained'. Another massive porkie. Instant money is far more important than repeat business. The company is blacklisted by so many companies that you will spend large parts of your days trying to sort out the undelivered emails, and how to weasel around different companies auto-reject inboxes. If a client relationship will not provide almost instant business, it is not worth the time and the relationship is likely burned due to continual spamming of emails. Away from what you spend your 12 hours a day doing, you will no doubt spend a few hours a week being roasted and humiliated, often in front of the whole office, by the two directors, who take great pleasure in highlighting how useless and stupid you are as an individual, making many personal digs, generally being horrible human beings and then continuing to sit at their desks and do little more than the job of a glorified in-house recruiter, spamming out 10,000 LinkedIn messages to unsuspecting graduates. I have no doubt in response to this there will be the wave of 'positive 4 & 5 star responses' posted in a desperate plea from the director's to hide the ever-crumbling facade that is this (unfortunately) continually functioning hellhole of a place. Then there is the salary. You'll start on £18k (give or take £1k) and be contracted to 8:30-17:30. Doesn't sound too bad. Until you realise that you are working 12 hour days for the first 6 months where you likely will not earn any commission, and you have worked out at this point that you are getting paid less than the minimum wage (illegal) and that someone who left school at 16 and now works full time at McDonald's is now earning more than you. An earlier review describing one of the director's as a waste of oxygen seemed a rather nice description. This individual is the epitomy of self-indulgence. Flaunting his money and fancy suits to paper over the cracks of his empty life with no friends and nobody who respects him, while constantly belittling consultants and telling them that everything they say is wrong. You're not that great. You can have your nice car and expensive tastes, but your life will always be hollow and empty, taking small pleasures from those you deem lesser than you, which is all your staff. Ask yourself do you really want to subject yourself to this? Do not fall into the trap of this company or their multiple umbrella companies, (which are conveniently set up to avoid an increase in corporation tax, even though ultimately remaining under the control of the two director's and CEO). If you are heart-set on recruitment, pick any company other than this one.

Take this as a warning don't work here. It's toxic, less than the minimum wage, worked 12 hours a day on monotonous tasks. If you are looking to brake you back for a company that really doesn't care work here, but if you are looking for a decent or just even a nice life please don't do it.

12 hours days expected when only contracted for 9 Lack of support Illegal pay structure - £6 an hour

Let's begin with the fact that this company is successful in what it sets out to achieve - make money at all costs. However, the business model is not conducive to long term relationships with clients or candidates and it is actively encouraged to postpone fee discussions with clients in order to screw them for as much money as possible. They then wonder why they don't get any repeat business. No one is ever allowed to meet clients or candidates, as if the meeting isn't going to result in instant revenue then it's not allowed. The commission structure IS uncapped, that part is true. However the likelihood of making anything like the money they talk of is virtually non-existent. Even if you do have one big commission, the process is likely to have destroyed several business relationships so it won't happen again any time soon. Management at this company is belligerent, duplicitous and only focussed on their own gain, resulting in some of the most selfish people you will encounter. Management meetings appear to be 10 men in a room shouting and laughing at each other for 3 hours - who wants to be a manager?The Directors are really the only characters in this charade that stand to gain, and I'm sure even they know it isn't sustainable forever. At some point those auditors are going to have a look into this company and many others like it, no matter how many times they spin off subsidiary companies. Somehow this business manages to suck some of the best graduates in off the streets, into the battery chicken farm where they are forced to lay as many golden eggs as possible until they inevitably leave in anywhere from 3-12 months. Frustrating, as there are plenty of respectable SMEs and MNCs in Leeds who could offer these people a proper career. The company prides itself on their 'end-of-period' events. What these are, is when the two glorious leaders take their pack of sentient beings out onto the streets of Leeds in search of venues they are not banned from, then proceeding to ensure everyone is too intoxicated to remember anything anyway. Main events of the day can include (but are not limited to); making consultants do forfeits, throwing phones off bar balconies, throwing money at bar staff and generally abusing people, etc. Actually leaving this business is a complete debacle in itself. You will be taken into a room, shouted at for an hour and told you will never amount to anything and that Mackenzie Stuart was the best thing that would ever happen to you. However at the same time, you'll be asked to stay. It's really quite confusing. Shouted and sworn at numerous times, and then asked to stay. Please take a moment to consider the fact that the longer more detailed reviews on here are all negative, whilst the positive ones are all the same format, and basically paraphrase the graduate brochure they distribute. 'Cons: Long hours (but that was made very clear in the interview!)' etc. Seriously, in between bouts of dragging people into meeting rooms to scream at them, you could try harder with the fake reviews. You will also notice some of the incorrect apostrophe use in the reviews concurrent with the company website. If you like working for 12 hours a day to build a client network of cobwebs and then scrabble up the scree slope towards the money at the top, not receiving any sort of training, being taken into a room and called various names and being taken for mindless days out each month; then please apply immediately - they are looking for people like you. Good luck.

So so many... “Long hours but thats recruitment for you” - trust me, its not recruitment, its this company trying to trick naive graduates that 12 hour days on significantly less than minimum wage is the same for all graduate/recruitment jobs. Next to no training, but high scrutiny if you don’t know something about the job. Terrible culture, absolute silence during ‘Prime Business Time’ as employees shunned for talking to each other at any point, made to feel guilty about taking a toilet break. Similar atmosphere to a primary school detention, that lasts for over 60 hours a week. “Only hire graduates” - not because they are looking for top graduate talent, because any experienced recruiter from a decent firm that goes into this company would laugh and leave almost instantly.