Steve J.
1/5
Midwest Consulting Group reached out to me using LinkedIn and asked me if I would be interested in a position with one of their clients. She said she really liked my technical expertise and I thought I would be a great fit for this difficult position, and tried to sell me on the fact that her client would even pay generously for relocation expenses.
She sent the job description for me to read and started speaking about all the wonderful benefits they would give me. She liked me so much that she even offered to send another description my way just to get me into the company. I offered to talk over the phone and gave her my phone number to call and also asked if I could see the other job description. She did not respond and she instantly stopped all communication.
The next day I waited by the phone at the specific time but she never called for the interview. She also never sent the additional job description like I asked for. I sent her a message via LinkedIn asking if something came up. I was polite in the message with the understanding that anything from schedule changes to emergency meetings can arise. She never responded.
I waited for the week to pass and even waited through the weekend with no dialogue from her. On Monday of the following week, I sent a brief message asking what is wrong. No response. At this point, I was getting concerned that this is either a scam or simply a bad recruiter.
The next day on Tuesday she was on LinkedIn and stated that she was struggling to fill this position and was pleading in the post. I went right back to the messaging system and sent her a message asking her to fess up and just tell me why she stopped speaking to me. That is what any professional should do. Just tell the truth and treat people with respect. No response.
Normally I don’t let people bother me, but this became personal for me because I use recruiters to find great talent for me. I depend on them to find candidates for me and I also expect them to take the search seriously and be professional the entire way. They not only represent their agency but also me as a client. If they give people my company name and treat them with disrespect then that translates to my company as well.
At this point, I decided to call her company, Midwest Consulting Group, and eventually spoke to the Vice President. He listened to my story and did nothing but defend this recruiter the entire time. He stated that she is one of their top recruiters and is a great employee. I told him that I have screenshots of all dialogue and pertinent exchanges, but he never asked to see the proof.
He said he would talk to her, and I demanded that since this type of offense is so personal to me that I need to know what happened. I asked that he return my call and tell me what the problem is/was so that I can have closure for this event, and also to tell me how he plans on handling it as a senior official. He assured me that he would return that information to me – and I never heard from Midwest Consulting Group again. The recruiter never apologized, VP who handled it internally never apologized or returned my answer.
Playing with a potential candidate’s employment life is a serious offense. It is also a threat to the client they represent since the clients depend on recruiting agencies to find talent for them. The recruiters hurt themselves personally (at the professional level) and gain a bad reputation, they hurt the agency they represent and work for, they hurt the potential candidate, and they hurt their clients who utilize them. Everybody loses.
I urge everybody reading this review to take great caution when deciding whether or not to interact with this company. If they decide you are the next one they are going to toss aside with no formal explanations or professional communication, you need to ask yourself if it will be worth the possible financial loss from not gaining employment.
