Michael Page International Reviews

Pros

Excellent benefits, four weeks starting vacation, very strong international name brand, work with very good people.

Cons

A relatively unknown name brand in U.S. with no focus on growing brand awareness. Not a good system/database, which makes the role administratively tedious.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in a marketing function and have a more flexible business model in all offices so people can focus on their individual strengths.

Pros

Learn a lot about the structure of companies
Meet a lot of great contacts
Keep up to date with current events

Cons

Lack of positive reinforcement
Left to battle for yourself
Unfair promotions/raises
High turnover

Pros

Good stepping stone to move on to other companies.

Cons

Very high turnover is worrying.

Advice to Senior Management

Get to know your staff better. Organize more events for staff and clients.

Pros

Decent starting salary and you clearly know how you can get promoted as it is all in black and white. the culture is great, lots of drinking and socialising, even better if you have moved to an area away from your friends etc. It is a great name to have on your CV and the training is excellent and puts you in great shape for future roles, any recruitment firm will consider you once you have worked for MP and other sales roles will seem a lot easier

Cons

As the title suggested, be prepared to give up your life! The standard working hours are 8am until 6/7pm but leave before 7 and you will be frowned upon! The only people liked are the successfull people, basically the consultants who are happy to give up their lives for the company. There is an unhealthy obsession with stats at MP such as phone minutes which means you spend far too much time focussing on the wrong tasks rather than focussing on what matters - Revenue. If you are not motivated by serious cash, put simply don't work here! When they talk about money motivations in the interview it is for a reason, they mean it. The internal growth can be commended but do individualistic consultants who are motivated purely by money make the best managers, regardless of their people skills? Questionnable to say the least. Staff turnover is huge, you will quickly be out if your face doesn't fit

Advice to Senior Management

Give people the time they need to make their mark in the company, and lose the obsession with needless statistics

Pros

For me, Michael Page has been a great place to work. I understand it's not for everyone, but it has provided everything that I was looking for from an employer when I joined. I came in with 3 clear requirements;
* I wanted a company where I could grow my career quickly through my effort and skill as opposed to how old I was.
* A role where I could be rewarded both finanically and non-financially
* An international brand which would allow me to work abroad
I was lucky enough to get all these things. What has kept me with Michael Page has been the people, the culture and the overall ambition of the company. There is a big team feel where generally everyone is working together and pulling in the same direction. Generally I have felt in charge of how successful I have been and which direction my career has taken which has been very important for me

Cons

It's not a job for everyone. It is a sales job and therefore there can be highs and lows. You need to be resilient and be able to deal with dissappointment. More recently that has been a greater focus on work-life balance, however mainly due to the industry, to be successful early on you need to put the effort in which can lead to longer hours, generally 8am-7pm. In the past Managers were just promoted because they were successful billers which led to issues, but generally the managers are becoming better and their has been a greater push on training managers.

If you're looking for a job where you sit at your desk everyday and are able to leave at 5pm then it's not a good fit. You're given a lot of responsibility and with that comes a certain amount of pressure, but the rewards are high.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be continued support for Managers and Senior Consultants. Senior Management needs to be close to the business at all times

Pros

great training and mentoring opportunities
fantastic sales and leadership
bonuses come 1 month after billing

Cons

low salaries
bosses will always say "you should be doing better"
if you are not european than you are working in the wrong place

Advice to Senior Management

sack up and pay people at least industry average!

Pros

MP is a place where you can find a good starting salary and good training (mainly on sales) to start your career in recruitment consultancy. If it's your first job or roughly so, it will teach you how to organize your time, prioritize and stay focused on your targets.
MP is also the place where if you bring in good revenues you get career advancement quickly, and management positions. I rarely found a company where you can achieve this so quickly.

Cons

MP is not the place you want to be in if you don't like to be very aggressive in sales. In the end it's not about recruitment skills, it's about calling and selling, selling and calling.
So if you're looking to become a good recruiter for your next corporate career, then don't go there. You won't learn anything, unless you're so lucky to find a good manager that dedicates extra time to teach you.
Problem is, these managers are rare because those that get promoted are almost only those who make a lot of revenues. And those who make a lot of revenues are usually solitary individualistic aggressive sales people, who don't know anything about managing people.
One final note, which varies from office to office of course, is related to the internal environment. It's a very competitive environment where rules have plenty of grey areas that the management doesn't want to clarify. The results is that you'll spend a lot of your time either protecting your accounts and candidates from the unfair attack of your colleagues, or fighting back and trying to steal from your colleagues for your own well being. Not to mention that this fight is constant and even more harsh between Page Personnel and Michael Page, two companies of the same group. Lots of time spent on this, lots of. Too much.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing to advice to the management. They have chosen their own way of high turnover in consultants, making them work long hours until they can't take it anymore, stimulating internal competition to the point that it becomes "internal fighting". The result is that commercial they are a powerhouse and they have high turnovers, which is the whole point of a public company.
So no advice, just new hires should know what to expect when they join the MP Group.

Pros

Benefits package is very thorough and generous, 401k plan is great. People and atmosphere make the job and the company a great place to work

Cons

No cons really-but this job is not for people who are uncomfortable with cold-calling

Advice to Senior Management

Great management

Pros

Work hard and perform well, and you will be recognised and rewarded. I started 10 years ago in a support role and have worked my way up to a directorship in the company, with global travel opportunities. The people in the support functions worldwide are awesome and I have made some amazing friends; it's these people who keep me engaged and motivated on a daily basis.

Cons

You have to be resilient - it's often not an easy job in the support functions. You're expected to work extremely hard, often for less than market rate, and with little praise or recognition from the operational business. However, I am seeing changes at senior management level that give me hope that this situation is slowly changing for the better.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on moving in the right direction.

Pros

1st rate company. Fun people. 20 days vacation, 6% match on 401k after 1 year. Team environment.

Cons

You can usually make more money at other recruiting firms. Hours can be long.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior level management should stay in the game and actually do business development and recruit from time-to-time to keep their finger on the pulse and know what recruiters are dealing with every day.