Pros

Training, 60+ years in the biz, ability to leverage off of other divisions' business

Cons

tough work/life balance, high production standards, not a fair mark-up by industry standards

Advice to Senior Management

Need to be more flexible to changing economic times. You've lost a lot of GREAT people and business relationships due to your inflexibility.

Pros

They offer a great training program for those who are money hungry and willing to dedicate their lives to succeeding. Being able to succeed at Robert Half can write your ticket for a future in staffing.

Cons

Long hours, no life, made to feel guilty if you need or want time off. Micro-managed every step of the way.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower your people, encourage them to keep striving to maintain the great brand name, Robert Half has obtained. Understand the necessity to have flexibility in order to maintain a positive outlook towards such a demanding job.

Pros

Strong training and personal development support. Wide range of projects and clients. Best database in the recruiting industry. Global offices and opportunity for advancement.

Cons

Internal positions require high levels of volume and constant personal sales growth is expected. Regular hours are 7:45am to 6pm with constant activity.

Advice to Senior Management

I respect and admire Robert Half leadership. It is a culture that thrives with the right personality. It is not the right fit for everyone, but I think they are honest about what is expected. The difficulty is execution and pace. The environment does not support a strong work/life balance.

Pros

Best training in the industry and the most recognizable brand name make sales fairly easy at RHI. Since you are taking the seat of someone who left/was fired you also have the chance to get into a book of business without lifting a finger.

Cons

Management is clueless. Employees are treated awfully. Comp plan is subject to change without notice. Top producers are practically forced out so the company can take over their books of business.

Advice to Senior Management

Be nicer to your top employees so that you retain them over time. Look at the disaster that the NYC offices are in and you'll see what I mean.

Pros

They get you job assignments that are related to your field and make sure that you enjoy the assignment and help you with any issues or problems that you may be experiencing while on the job.

Cons

Sometimes a while will go by without any temp jobs available and when one does come up, it may start right away.

Advice to Senior Management

There is really no room for advancement opportunities since the job assignments are purely temp and are hardly ever temp-to full time jobs.

Pros

RHI has some great technology, and good ATS/CRM software.. Far better than most. If you can get in a branch with a real opportunity, not one that has broken an hours threshold, you might have a chance for succes. Great training, if you have no sales or recruiting experience. They have a recipe, that "any dummy" can follow, hence they have recently been hiring dummies..

Cons

No value in people. Its all about being the best parrot. Preach what the guy above you want you to preach. RHI would have you believe they are immune to economic pressures. Piss poor mid/sr management, I can honestly say they hire brainless people to be mid management, rule by iron first..People with stand up ethics, dont belong. Its all about feeding shareholders, not doing whats right for the business.

Advice to Senior Management

Go private, so you don't have to be short sided on your actions. Hire intelligent caring management, who can transfer passion. Your recipe is broken, as your industry has changed. Clean out the board - Max, frankly your an attorney/investor. Your knowledge of recruiting in the internet era - well your just too old..

Pros

Robert Half is a massive company with a well known name. They know and understand recruiting as a company and through their training programs you'll learn recruiting as well. They are a company obsessed with numbers, so as long as you maintain those numbers, they'll most likely be pleased with you. If you make it at Robert Half you'll most likely be able to find a Recruiting Job anywhere else you apply. It's a good company to work for if you fit the profile.

Cons

They are a company obsessed with numbers. This can become very stressful. I started with Robert Half right before the economic downturn and watched weekly as employees all around me were "let go", Robert Half's way of laying off without severance. Management was constantly threatening the Apocalypse during conference calls which did more to depress people than motivate them. There isn't much of a work-life balance, my average week as about 60 hours, and that was nothing compared to some of my colleagues. Robert Half is a machine, albeit a well oiled one, but it isn't a place that will take time with you as an individual. You are just a cog, and if you don't fit right, they won't hesitate in dropping you.

Advice to Senior Management

They're extremely successful. I could say try and work with people as individuals, but their model seems to be working so why fix what isn't broken.

Pros

The potential to make a lot of money is phenomenal. Sales training is unmatched. Career development opportunities are there for proven employees.

Cons

The model creates extreme competition and dishonesty between internal employees. Hours can be very long. Out of the box thinking is discouraged (too much structure).

Advice to Senior Management

Many employees complained that senior managed ruled by fear. Over the last year during the recession that has shifted and upper management seems to be more supportive and aware of the challenges we face in the sales force. Keep doing that - you will have more loyal and happy employees which means more success and revenue generated.

Pros

Robert Half is a well known brand name that opens many doors in the world of agency recruiting. Either they hired someone, know someone who got hired, or they were hired through Robert Half. With so many calls going to hiring managers, the name Robert Half seems to be one that keeps experienced Finance and Accounting leaders on the line long enough to hear who you are representing. This can go a long way in a tough economy. Comp is good with a draw you can live off of while you are working on billing.

Cons

It's all about the numbers. You aren't really encouraged to develop relationships with your pipeline that are meaningful. At least not out of the gate. Instead of coaching to success with specific tactics, talking points, local market shift news, etc. It is truly about the numbers. Many of us already know recruiting is a numbers game, but really when you are a newb and you don't know much about recruiting...learning about the relationships is just as important. The #'s are all that matters at the end of the month if you are 2500 short of goal, you feel like you are wearing a target on your head, your back and your chest. If you can't handle the pressure of this quota driven culture..not the place for you.

On the surface RHI is really shiny people are polished and so are the doorknobs but once you get in to the back of the building (war room) it's a dump. Computers are ages old and so is the technology they expect you to use. It's the 21st century and their systems leave something to be desired that is for sure.

Advice to Senior Management

Coach, don't preech. Lead your people to success by walking through the scenarios with them and advising on how they could have handled better. Weekly reviews should not just be a count of the numbers, but a coaching opportunity on the qualify of candidates, send-outs or orders.

Pros

RHI provides access to the best tools and training materials in the industry, hands down. Their internal database is exceptional as a sales and recruiting tool. They are, indeed, world class from an operations and marketing perspective. The feature/benefits sell is very easy to pitch as a staffing manager. Plenty of collateral available, class ‘A’ office space, Fortune 1000 benefits (though the high turnover appears to prevent room to negotiate better health benefit costs). They are debt free and have a ton of cash on hand so the chance of growing and expanding through acquisition is always a possibility. And that is where it ends.

Cons

Granted - it is a tough economy out there. Robert Half was one of those companies that didn't own up to a global recession until the banks failed. As you can imagine the message to internal employees is that they are mostly responsible for the sharp decline in business. That has been a consistent message for the past 2 years and it is exhausting to hear day in and day out.

Make no bones about it, as a new employee you are nothing more than a number hired to deliver RHI’s message 25 times a day, 125 times a week. If you are good at delivering a polished message and mimicking the style of your office’s tenured employees and management team you, yourself, will be promoted to a Division Director position (read as Sales Manager) in about 1.5 to 2 years.

Money is good for a 22 – 28 year old employee but look around when interviewing – what do you see? Very few 35 and older employees with the exception of senior management and their financial perm-placement and consulting divisions.

The ideal personality fit for RHI in today’s challenging market: Young, Type A, willing to step all over others for your own personal gain. RHI calls that a “healthy culture.”

Training in most branches is a crap shoot. Starting in 2006 management compensation was heavily weighed on personal production so there is very little incentive for them to train new employees. So, for the most part you are on your own.

They use their Per-Desk Average to decide who stays and who goes and favoritism and office politics is very popular and widely practiced. If you are a management favorite you may be assigned some well performing accounts - that is, of course, if the managers themselves don't take those said accounts as their own. Fairness is no longer a common practice and the greedy and slick tend to thrive in all divisions. Turnover is very, very high lately. Maybe as high as 90%, if not higher, in some districts. The compensation plan introduces a draw against your salary versus commissions after 9 months (average draw is $2900 - $3500/month) - a concept that was dismissed by senior management in the past now acts as a revenue stream for the company - which is sad. At any given time in your career you may dig a hole that is very difficult to emerge from. If you are in the hole your options are very limited and typically you are labeled as a person who "doesn't get it" = a frequent phrase bellowed by mid and senior management.

Advice to Senior Management

The $10 Billion Dollar Plan is a thing of the past. The truth is that RHI's staffing divisions have not grown substantially in the past 4-5 years. Yes, RHI was a $2.5 Billion in 2001 and a $5 Billion company in 2007 but that was due to foreign expansion and Protivit's growth during the lucrative SOX years. The internal message is lousy and you reputation as an employer is worsening. Why are you letting that happen? The inside joke in the staffing industry is that RHI does a wonderful job training the competition. As I am still a share holder It will be interesting to see how RHI plans to recover as an employer when the economy changes.