PageGroup Reviews

Pros

I loved working for Page! I learned so much, tripled my salary in 4 years, worked with some amazing people and got some amazing opportunities. Negative reviews you might read are outdated; 8-6 working is a thing of the past, and flexible working has meant that employees come and go much more freely, and the office is a more relaxed and far less corporate place than the one I joined. Some departments are now completely dress down but even the more corporate ones (finance) are no longer wearing ties to work.

Nowadays the company culture is very different all together. I never worked on the weekend or in the evenings, but it’s easy to get invested and as a manager I spent a lot of time telling my teams to switch off while on days off. This is a company that is very exclusive about its hires - if you have any concerns at all about a potential hire, they’re probably a no. Therefore everyone around you is pushing to move forwards and it’s extremely rare to overhear anyone moaning about the business.

Despite being a global business, the SLT are extremely visible in local offices and take time to understand staff, even joining teams on celebratory nights out etc.

Progression can be extremely fast, training is excellent, and support is always there should you ask for it, although once you know what you’re doing you are given a great deal of trust and freedom to do your job. Bonuses take a while to start as you build your market, but once they do they can be significant. In the meantime, and throughout, there are loads of smaller rewards along the way, ranging from public awarded bottles of champagne to trips abroad for top performers.

They put you through your paces to get to management, and as such all the managers are truly inspiring. There are also loss of opportunities to move abroad, if that’s your thing, after a few years good service, or to move into different areas.

The company, for a recruitment company, is extremely moralistic. Compliance checks ensure that revenue is properly signed off by clients and focus goes on maintaining clients long term relationships. That said, many clients see recruitment as an entirely free service, and will cancel roles after several weeks work etc. The company finds a great balance between customer service and commerciality, and the benefit of such a well known brand is they are I afraid to walk away from non commercial business.

Over the last couple of years the business has transformed completely, investing more in technology and development than ever before, and reviewing and changing their corporate structure to better serve clients.

If you’re looking for a great company that will progress you up your career and let you do some amazing things along the way, this is the one for you.

Advice to Management

I’ve seen some good people leave because they weren’t allowed to transfer departments (because they were billing well), and I’ve seen others offered promotions to buy them back after leaving. If they are worth those promotions, and if the company doesn’t want to lose them, give them opportunities and reward their work before they get to the point of quitting.

Otherwise, keep doing what you’re doing - love the business.

Pros

1) Good progression, clear career path.
2) Buzzy culture, good team morale.
3) Listen to staff, what's working, what's not working, then implement changes based on this.
4) Mostly inspiring leadership.
5) Values employees - good bonuses, incentive schemes.
6) Ability to progress as far as you push yourself - you get out what you put in.

Advice to Management

Need more clarity around bonuses, when you get to Manager the career path becomes slightly more hazy.

Pros

Great support
Great opportunities
Great potential to succeed

Advice to Management

Allow people to break the standard mould more, recruitment is changing.

Pros

- Fun, enjoyable, you are in control
- Career Progression
- Remuneration
- People you work with
- Genuinely feel you work for the best in the market

Pros

Very accommodating management team if you need better work life balance!

They are very good at retaining their best talent.

Advice to Management

-Allow Consultants to have more freedom and authority over managing their portfolios without weekly reports and daily check ins with their managers.
-If consultants have built relationships with clients then allow them to account manage them. In an industry with high turnover, it does not make sense to change a client's allocated consultant just because of postcode and address changes when the consultant still works for you.

Pros

Base salary will always beat any other recruiter

Advice to Management

Employ people based on tougher interview process, don't sell people a dream that is impossible.

Pros

Working for a well established business that has a structure for career progression and bonus that it will stick to and genuinely want you to reach asap

Pros

A lot of investment in training and innovating ways in which we generate people and leads.

A clear strategy in a challenging market which isn't often followed through in other recruitment agencies.

Prescriptive progression through to Directorship.

A much more defined bonus structure in comparison to when I joined five years ago.

Pros

I worked at Page for 2 years and really bought into the culture. I never thought I would leave Page, I really loved the business, people, training and challenges. Only now being in my 3rd recruitment business do I realise just how good the training was. I am excelling compared to other recruiters who didn't have the same grounding and training I had at Page Group.

So.. pros -

Excellent training
High performance culture
The KPI culture really helps you to be hard on yourself later in your career when you are left to use your own initiative
Surrounded by talented young driven people
Great team building incentives for high performers
Very transparent promotion structure, based on Billings so no confusion
Top of the market CRM system (Profile), other firms really have bad CRM's
Great managers who have been there and done it and on the whole still bill
Strong benefits package

Advice to Management

As consultants reach that 2 year mark, give them much more freedom
Pay experienced consultants who are trained up after a couple of years much higher bonuses
Recognise that different markets require different KPI's

Pros

Great focus on development and progression - career not a job

Advice to Management

Training needs to be more practical. More needs to be done to retain talent.