Insight Global The Truth About Being A Recruiter for Insight Global Nationwide Nationwide

Unfortunately I worked for Insight Global as a recruiter for about a year. Here is my take on the company: the good and the bad. I would HIGHLY recommend NO ONE ever take a job with this company! I truly believe it's a scam, not just for the contractors, but for the recent college grads who get tricked into doing this. I know this is long, but if you're considering interviewing with/working for Insight Global, I suggest you read.

The Good: Insight Global hires a lot of recent college grads and most everyone in your office will be 30 years or younger, so it's a fun atmosphere. (It's also a very competitive atmosphere, so it's safe to say if you're not ready to compete and be aggressive you'll fall through the cracks. But if you enjoy that type of environment you can really thrive.) You do have the opportunity to make a lot of money with the company if you stick it out, put in long hours, and really work for it. It's a "work hard, play hard" environment. There are lots of opportunities for happy hours/office outings and you can find great friends within the company. (Note: office outings were pretty much mandatory & involved heavy drinking...you were looked down upon/outcast if you didn't attend.) Insight Global is also the 4th largest technical staffing firm nationwide and one of the fastest growing staffing firms (if not the fastest). There's a sense of comraderie across the whole company. There are 2 fun conferences in Atlanta and Orlando each year (but they are mandatory, over a weekend, and are unpaid) and incentive trips for those who hit their sales contests.

The Bad: Everyone starts out as a recruiter which is very boring/mundane work and it feels like you do most of the grunt work but make the least amount of money/commission. (But hey, that's pretty typical of everyone's first job!) You'll be expected to get in around 7AM and won't leave till around 5:30PM at the very earliest. (Towards the end of my time there, I was often the first to leave and I'd stay until 5:30-6PM.) As you push for the sales promotion to "account management" you'll have to get in earlier or stay later to do "roleplays" of different sales scenarios, go on client outings, etc.

As a recruiter, I felt very micro-managed down to the second. The sales manager would randomly come check your call sheets or candidate profiles throughout the day. You'd be asked to "roleplay" in front of your peers on the spot and get their feedback. Only the loudest and most competitive stand out. You'd be invited on client outtings if you were doing well, but this was just a chance for the higher ups to judge you/see if you were personable enough with their clients.

There were mandatory meetings at 7:30AM every Tuesday and 7am(!) meetings every Friday. Every single morning there was also an office-wide "pump up" meeting at 8AM called "Zone." (Sounding like a cult yet?) As soon as that meeting was over, it was time to "hit the phones," scouring Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. for candidate resumes and then calling the candidates to screen for our (few and far between) job openings. As a recruiter you're told to "smile and dial." It almost reminded me of a call center environment. 8AM to 5PM was called "A Time" and all you were allowed to do was dial the phones, screen candidates, or bring candidates into the office for "in house" interviews. The rest of your day (prior to 8AM and after 5PM) was "B Time" where you could get up to make copies, print things, look for "leads" to cold call on, check email, etc.

As you're screening candidates, you're also taught to "lock the candidates down at their lowest rate" i.e. the lowest salary they'd accept so the company can make the most money. I get that it's a business but I thought some of the tactics were pretty manipulative. You're also expected to call a candidate's references even if you don't have a job for them so that you can try to set a meeting with their managers. You'll be expected to make 60-80 calls a day, complete 45 candidate profile forms a week, and bring approx 5-7 people in for "in house interviews" (which is misleading because often you don't even have a job for them.) You are taught to get "leads" off of everyone you talk to--you ask candidates for their hiring managers' names and contact information. These are people that Insight Global would want to meet/try to get business from.

Another word on these "in house interviews." Like I mentioned, as a recruiter you were expected to bring a minimum of 5-7 people into the office each week. When you step into our office, there is a "receptionist desk" but no receptionist...just a telephone that you use to dial in to the back office to let a recruiter know you're here. For any contractor that comes in, it's probably a red flag right away that this is some sort of scam. Then you sit in small "conference room" to wait for the recruiter to greet you. As the recruiter, I would be expected to bring people in even if I didn't have a job for them. I would feel so bad--out-of-work/unemployed people would come in wearing their best suit with nice copies of their resumes and cover letters, and I would have to make up questions to ask them. They would be so excited, but usually I knew I wasn't going to be able to help them, simply because my Insight Global office had so few job positions open at a time. These "in house interviews" were just a way to see how productive recruiters were being/if we were "hitting our numbers for the week." Sadly, it was also a way to "screen" the candidates to check to make sure they were a "culture fit" for our client. I'll let you infer what you want from that...

I also felt like I was scamming people all day...tricking them into giving me leads (names of their hiring managers--people who we'd like to get business from), tricking them into interviewing for/taking jobs with us (often nickeling and diming them out of an honest wage or convincing them the job was something it's not), or tricking them into thinking that we'll "keep them in mind for future positions" if they're not a fit for the current role I was calling them about.

The people you work with, though young and fun, are often fraternity/sorority/washed up college athlete/used car salesmen-esque people. Insight Global recruits people out of college because they're the only ones dumb enough to put up with the long hours/poor salary/mindless work. That goes for people in leadership positions as well...the oldest person in my office was about 30. So you've got these rather immature, money hungry sales people who are doing the training, the "mentoring," etc. I'm sorry but a guy who's openly cursing/talking about how many people he sleeps with/coming into work hungover isn't someone who I'm going to listen to or respect. And don't even get me started on their IT knowledge. No one knows ANYTHING about technology when they're first hired (or even within the ~1st year of employment) which must be frustrating for the job seekers we "pre-screen" and "interview."

Full disclosure: It's an entry level sales job so you'll make around 31k (although some cities have a slightly higher base salary due to cost of living--maybe up to 35k-36k for California/NY offices?) and only 1% commission. So if you bring in 5k for the company each week it'll be $50 extra a paycheck before taxes, 2 weeks in arrears.

As you can imagine, the job has very high turnover. Once you've been there a few months, you're then stuck training the influx of new people that come in. Most people quit by the 8-9 month mark if they haven't been promoted by then. I was with the company for ~10 months and I saw about 10 people quit, 3 people get fired, 2 people get demoted, and only 2 people get promoted. Very high turnover, but if you make it to the 1 year mark, get promoted, and stick it out, the turnover rate drops dramatically (or so I'm told).

If you make it past the first few months and you've sort of got the recruiting side down, you start cold calling and trying to set meetings with hiring managers around town. However, these meetings will be for the people who are already account managers. You might get to go on the meeting that you set IF you're hitting all your recruiter numbers for that day. (Kind of strange if I [a girl] set a meeting with a hiring manager and some dude shows up instead of me.) And even though you got the "lead" and "set the meeting," if it happens to bring in any business it will go to that account manager whose territory the company is located in since you're still just a recruiter, i.e. you won't make any money from the business YOU brought in. It feels like a Ponzi scheme--as a recruiter I seek the talent, make the phone calls, do the reference checks, and even set the initial meetings with hiring managers from time to time, but the Account Managers make most of the money from the job placement.

To be promoted you are suppoesd to "hit your numbers" consistently for 8 weeks in a row and roleplay with the higher-ups in the company to make sure you have the Insight Global "pitch" and the Insight Global "charisma" (aka you are a hot girl or an outgoing/sporty guy.) In my opinion, promotions were arbitrary and were based more on personality, looks, etc. rather than on performance. In most offices the ones promoted were outgoing, pretty, young girls who could (in theory) make a nerdy IT guy melt the instant he sees them. I felt like I had to work harder rather than smarter to succeed, and even that didn't matter sometimes.

If and when you're promoted it's a sales job so it will involve a lot of cold calling and a lot of trying to get people to do what you want, which I found manipulate and uncomfortable. I was trained to cold call and not give up until I got what I wanted from the person I was calling (Wolf of Wall Street anyone?). You have to be pushy, aggressive, and, in my opinion, RUDE. I guess I am definitely not meant for sales...

Other problems you face post-promotion: You might be given a bad territory (bad area of town with not a lot of business); you might be put on the "direct placement" track rather than contract-to-hire track (which is harder because most IT companies prefer to hire contractors these days); you might do very well but if the higher-ups don't like you they'll constantly make your job harder/expect more of you/demote you; and you will be constantly micro-managed.

I never made it to the sales/account management position, but from what I saw, you had to have very high "activity" each week. You are expected to have a minimum of 25 (?) meetings & 5 client lunches a week and you are required to make "out of office contact" with clients twice a week, which amounts to taking clients out to dinner/drinks until 10PM or later. Most of the Account Managers I knew had no life outside of Insight Global. They worked from 7AM to 6PM (minimum) 3 days of the week & the other two days of the week or on their weekends, they'd often work till 10PM or later, taking clients to dinners, sporting events, etc. Not really an ideal lifestyle for someone with a siginficant other, familes, or friends outside of the company!

But it doesn't end there. Account Managers have "Sales Meetings" every Monday from about 5-7PM. And as an Account Manager you are required to be a mentor to a recruiter(s) and take them out for dinner/drinks/sporting events once a month to "check in" with them. And you are supposed to roleplay with recruiters before or after work at least once a week to guauge how they're doing with their pitches. And Account Managers have to take turns bringing breakfast for the recruiters' 7AM Friday morning meetings. And the office has a mandatory office-wide "outting" once a month. And you typically have to go to dinner with your sales manager once a month to check in. And whenever a regional manager/higher up comes into town, you typically have check-in meetings/dinners/breakfasts with them outside of work. AND there is one night a quarter where we have a meeting called "Plus/Deltas" where we literally sit in a circle and say one positive thing about each person and one thing that person needs to improve on. AND we have conference calls at the end of each quarter beginning at 5PM to discuss the office's progress. SO, between all of that STUFF, you will be with Insight Global folks from 7AM-8PM (minimum) pretty much every day of the workweek.

A sidenote on that: you will be considered an outcast if you don't hang out with your colleagues after work, on weekends, etc. As a recruiter, you were pretty much required to eat lunch with your fellow recruiters every day (bonus points if you went out to lunch and spent your hard earned $ because it promoted "social outtings/development.") You were outcast if you went home to eat or had to run errands. In fact, people would get suspicious and ask, "Are you interviewing somewhere else?!" if you didn't spend every second with your colleagues. I felt like they discouraged having a significant other as well. In my office not a single account manager had a boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse.

I felt like I was tricked into thinking that this job was something it's not during the interview process & first few weeks on the job. If you're interviewing with Insight Global, listen carefully to what the interviewer tells you about the position. He/she will likely tell you all about THEIR lucrative career in sales and will then describe the great commission structure...for Account Managers. Realize that you will be a recruiter making a measly 1% commission until you're promoted. Not once in the interview proess did anyone tell me what being a recruiter was like, and they told me I would be promoted in about 6 months. Once you start, they tell you that it will be likely closer to a year. Also, with the promotion comes no bump in salary. Your weekly "spread" (amount of $ you bring in per week for the company based on the # of people you've hired) goes back to $0 and you have to start placing more people before making any additional commission. I've also seen people demoted/fired for not making money fast enough (fair enough I guess). You will also be required to buy a company approved car once promoted to sales, though you do get a car and cell phone allowance each month. (Cars you can drive as an Account Manager=nice but not too nice. Honda Civic/Accord, Toyota Camry, Volkswagon Jetta, Kia Optima, Hyundai Sonata, etc. I was told that if I was promoted I'd have to sell my car and get a new one even though my car is totally paid for and it's a 8 year old SVU in good condition.) Finally, you'll hear a lot about these amazing sales contest trips to Miami and Cancun. Only ONE person from my offiice had ever done well enough to get to Cancun...

In the end, I was no longer interested in sales, didn't want to pursue the alternative "pro recruiter" track, and was kind of disgusted by some of the company's tactics, so I parted ways amicably. I'm thankful for this job for a few reasons: 1. It made me realize my self-worth/what I'm willing to put up with and not put up with. 2. It has made me much more comfortable speaking to people over the phone and in person. 3. I got lots of (indirect) interview practice while screening candidates and prepping them for interviews. 4. I made a lot of good friends (most of which have quit as well.) 5. I realized through working in the staffing industry how useless a bachelor's degree is these days and I ultimately decided to go back to school! However, do yourself a favor--learn from my mistakes and run FAR AWAY from this company! I very much regret the time I wasted there and the stuff I put up with. I feel terrible for the ways I essentially scammed people into thinking I had a job for them. It felt great when I was actually able to hire someone, but those times were few and far between, and I also felt like Insight Global was underpaying them.

PS--You might see according to 24-7 Wallstreet, Insight Global was recently named one of "America's Best Companies To Work For." AGAIN THIS IS A SCAM! The companies chosen were baesd on their reviews/posts on Glassdoor.com. YES Insight Global has a great ranking on Glassdoor BUT THAT'S BECAUSE, as employees, WE WERE REQUIRED TO 1. POST POSITIVE THINGS ABOUT THE COMPANY and 2. GET OUR CONTRACTORS (those we had hired) or POTENTIAL CANDIDATES TO POST POSITIVE THINGS ABOUT US! 2 POSITIVE REVIEWS A MONTH! So this is very misleading/not true.