Pros
Very very few. While it is easy to work out what they want and how to survive, its nothing more than a place to lie low for a year or 18 months and leverage it into a better company. The training they all talk about is just box-ticking. If you have never done sales before, it might seem like some wonderful insight. However, it's nothing more than very basic client and candidate management. None of the things the Regional MD who keeps responding to on this site are what they sound. They are merely more of the usual box ticking this company does to please the shareholders and try to look good. Yeah, long vacation allowances, kids and women at work and family time and all that sound nice, but there is NO CHANCE you are touching any of this stuff in reality. Even mentioning it to your manager will get actual laughter in response.
Cons
As has been mentioned over 400 times on this site, this is pure hard sales and nothing else. There is no relationship management, nothing strategic. As its such a huge company they a one-size-fits-all approach. Unfortunately for anyone working here, that one size is so brutal, so old fashioned and so unpleasant that unless you get lucky and hit a purple patch or are stunningly attractive and can woo the management with flirtation, you will last 89 days exactly (at 90 days they have to lock in your benefits so they fire most people on day 89. So dignified). Otherwise, its just grind. Mindless KPI's, public humiliation, treated like a prisoner. My first day out of training I tried to, you know, do something normal like go to the bathroom. My manager said where do you think you're going. I said to the bathroom. He said not so fast, and came around to see how many of the people on my list I had called. He checked through and said ok, but dont take too long. Seriously??? I'm 29 years old. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Lunch, leaving before 8pm, taking an emergency call from your kid's school, any of these things you practically have to take a scolding like a 5 year old/ What's so pathetic is that every one of these negative reviews is what they want. They dont want career people, they dont want smart people with ideas, they want desperate people who will take this abuse and pain and will learn how to grind it out of others. Anyone with a decent college degree or what has worked in industry will read these and stay away. Desperate people who have watched Boiler Room or Glengary Glen Ross (seriously, if I hear those films quoted once and then have to watch two 50 year old men chest bump each other to celebrate how "alpha" they are......) too many times and think they can take the pressure are the ones they want. They see these places described and rush to join. Let me burst the bubble though. There are high pressure places where in return for the pressure you get paid immense sums of money. Page is not one of them. In return for enduring the misery, you get a meager salary, and usually a very weak bonus if you manage to scrounge together enough fees to get into bonus. There is always a story why they couldnt pay out a big one, but "just show corporate you are consistent and they'll reward you". 3 consecutive times I have been told this story, and this time I am out. I am leaving. The ones who survive and make it through are more miserable than me. Their offers of career make me actually depressed. This has been a sad chapter in life. I take no pleasure in their business' condition. Online platforms are dominating contingency, and their retained offering is not even close to the top flight retained firms.
