Ambitious company but Poor People Management
Pros
As a young graduate, it's an enticing work environment to join to start a first job in the tech industry and to make new friends. There is a nice, collaborative working atmosphere between young graduates. There are opportunities to visit clients around the UK and abroad, and attend marketing conferences.
Cons
"Sold the dream, delivered the nightmare". This was a quote made by a customer of Halo. Unfortunately, the same can be said for joining as an employee. The company is run by good people, however, they say all the right things but they don't deliver on what was sold. Word of advice: If you don't mind being thrown in at the deep end in terms of being put in front of clients and trying to advise clients on best approaches to using the software or fixing technical issues, with next to no training, then you should be fine. However, if you take pride in your work and wish to provide a satisfactory service for clients, take heed that the company do not consider this as an item at the top of their list of priorities. Essentially, it was evident that the company at the stage that it is at currently focus more on revenue growth, profit-making, and becoming a significant market competitor rather than focusing on value for clients by providing quality support and consultation. What was most frustrating about my time at the company was not being trained in adequately, and simply being told to answer the support phone or respond to technical issues of which I was not fully-equipped to resolve adequately myself. The software is incredibly complex for someone who has never had any exposure or experience to the industry or the concept itself. I wanted to contribute to the value of the company by providing quality service to clients, but there was little to no investment in upskilling staff. It seemed like the company just wanted to fill numbers of staff but didn't really care about the level of service that was given to clients. There is a misleading concept of the value on it's people. The management were very reactive to when problems or issues arose but it doesn't take a specialist businessperson to foresee the issues with hiring young, naive graduates, not providing adequate training, and expecting results. All-in-all, the most important resource in any business is it's people. When both the software product that Halo produces and the revenue margins are of primary concern over that of it's employees, it's not a healthy place to work, I knew this was not the place for me.
