completely overpromise and underperform.  Make false and inaccurate promises. Complete waste of money.. don't do it. They prey on people that are struggling in a tough environment and hard sell you on techniques, that quite frankly, and unprofessional and do not work.

You all may have heard or read on this site about any number of scams evolving Executives search firms. There is another one on the block called ExecutivesOnly.com and The Barrett Group that promises the increases of pay, tapping that elusive unpublished market of jobs, shortening your search time, and plugging you into their network of contacts. You may not see much of this company reported with the Better Business Bureau because the owner of ExecutivesOnly.com and The Barrett Group sits on the board of the Rhode Island BBB (as Mr. and not Dr., can't seem to find out where he acquired that title). The prices are made up as they go depending how much of a sucker the next guy is. And if you finance the total over say 3 months, be assured you will not be on any interviews before that 2nd payment has been put in their account. They even keep the funds when the client cancels a deal in the rescission period. Trust me if you are in the $125,000 plus income bracket with a great degree or two, you do not need someone to find a position for you. What is truly repugnant about these firms is that they prey on those people that are having difficult times and are on their last dollar; trust me these guys will take it anyway, what class. Most exec's are not on their last dollar it is the other company (TBG) that deals in the less that $75,000/yr, people that live paycheck to paycheck that are sold an incredible promise that will only cost them $3-4000, often their last bit of money. On the web site, you might want to question just how many of the postings are current, you'll find the explanation is it just got filled darn! I know all of this to be true as I am an X employee. I had to leave immediately upon finding these tactics to be true. And there is more that can be read on other sites like this one in the coming weeks. John Dennisport, Massachusetts
U.S.A.

ABOUT THE RIPOFF REPORT BELOW:

Ripoff Report would like to let readers know that Ripoff Report emailed this customer, so the member business could make things right with them. When a business joins the Corporate Advocacy Program, Ripoff Report emails everyone from the past so the member business can make things right with them. Of course, everything within reason. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses, so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer. The author of the Ripoff Report below never responded to our offer to help them.

STATEMENT FROM THE BARRETT GROUP:

This person purports to have been a client but again we could not verify that. It's more a criticism than a complaint but it generally looks bad for our service. Quite a bit of the service has changed since this is written, but I can't say we made changes because of the comments.

NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED

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I think you will find this overview consitent with others, but hopefully with some helpful additions, including tips on what they offer without having to overpay for it.

1) Sign-Up / Payments

They call you after applying to job postings. They make it sound like a privlidge to have them help you. That they are exclusive and only select those that they know have a high likelihood of finding a job. Approval is needed by the Barrett committee. This may be true, but sounded more like they were more filtering on who could pay thier 10k+ fees or not. They have 2 payment options. Pay all upfront with a discount or 70% upfront and 30% when you start your new job. I paid 15K. I would love to be a "fly on the wall" of their review board. I really hope they are not making fools of those that apply, but my instincts say they are.

2) The Team

The initial Sales pitch is that you will be assigned a 5 member team, that you will meet after you sign up. I was assigned a nice enough person, with no access to other team members. He did make use of others, but they were low level admin type people that were rarely involved.

3) The Resume

I had a resume written by Blue Steps. Quite good. Barrett recommended I relax the 2 page limit, which we did. The resume was initially re-written by someone that produced a poor result. My lead guy realized this after I asked him some questions and he quickly took the lead. The end result was a better resume, although a somewhat painful process with me providing most of the value add.

They did recommend I ask others to review it. Both for value add feedback but also for networking. I had already done that with my previous Blue Step resume, but this was a good suggestion.

4) Their Private List of Job Posting

Yes they have one, but it is a joke. Quite useless and they know it. Sounds great on the front end sales to say they have special access to jobs. IMO this was very deceptive. BTW, when I shared this and other feedback, I always got an evasive response. If they were straight up I would have been OK. Just another sign of the "scamish" nature of the group.

5) Linkedin Profle

A major theme of their recruiting effort is networking. Get to the "job" opportunity before it is opened or know someone at the company that can be an advocate. BTW, this is very good advise.

He was helpful at encouraging me to post a Pic. They emphasize a "social tone" versus it being similar to your resume. Show more personality and what you have to offer the social community. Good advice, although again they had very little feedback. They had some very poorly written guidelines and examples. I pressed for a link to some of his best examples and after many delays finally received 2 pretty mediocre ones. Again, good advice, but they offered very little help.

6) Linkedin Contacts

They were helpful in emphasizing how important it is to have >500 contacts. I had about 150. I was hesitent since I only wanted "high value" relevent contacts versus my garderener, but I do agree that we should all take the challange to get close to that. BTW, I still have not added my gardener, although I have more respect for him then the Barrett group :(.

They also showed how to search for relevent contacts in your work domain and geography. I added about 15 by sending unsolicited invites saying "Thought is useful to become connected since we are in the same industry, etc". It was a good recommendation.

They advertise the value of the many important contacts you get by being linkedin to members of the Barrett Group. I found these quite useless and another "over sold" aspect of the Sales pitch.

They also want you to post "value add" info that they is broadcast to your contacts. A pretty good idea to remind people of your value.

In general the Linkedin tutorials for search, changing my link, etc were useful.

7) E-Mail Blasts to Relevent Recruiters

They use an industry database to identify Exec Recruiters contact info. They generate a generic cover letter they send to 300+. They claim a menaingful % of jobs come from this (10-15%). I think this is "old school" and did not find this useful. I suspect they will also find that the success rate has dropped rapidly.

8) Published Market Search Engines

They promote Simplyhired. It is a job aggregator and has the advantage of being integrated with Linkedin. It is a very good site, but does not pick up jobs posted on some other important sites. I asked specifically for what other "value add" sites should I use, with very little useful feedback. For example, you should know that Simplyhired does not include Linkedin job postings and hence should use that also.

He emphasized that Published jobs only yield 15-20% of jobs, hence his lack of enthsiasm and emphasis for this. Perhaps true, but the level of excellence in what to use and why was missing.

9) Access to Key Executives at Target Companies

They promote a service where you can obtain a list of key people at companies you are interested in. This will allow you to reach out to them. The process and forms to obtain this is quite comical. The idea is good, but when i tried it the results were rather disappointing. A spreadhseet with 100s of names with incomplete information.

10) Call to Prospective References

This was a service I was especially interested is. Always useful to be hear what your ex-boss will say. I was disappointed in the service. First of all, they know the caller is from RI and everyone said it sounded like an outsourced group. Simple and stanfard questions. Only 3 of the 6 I asked were contacted. My references said they left messages with times and cell phone numbers to call, but none were made. Poor experience for all. I pressed Barrett and they claimed it was my references that had issues. No doubt that was partially true, but I strongly suspect Barrett did not follow through. They offered to complete the remainder, but based on the quality of the service I did not want to subject my high profile references to this.

11) Interview Prep

Used it once and stopped. Not very useful.

12) Post Hire Consulting

They offer services after you are hired. To help build relationships and success. I will not use them. They are not capable enough.

13) Summary

On the positive side, the consultant they assigned was quite pleaseant, a good cheerleader (although too much at times, thought I was in a SNL skit) with some good ideas. He was, however, not very useful beyond a few good ideas.

Some of the services were clearly over-sold or a joke (their internal job posting board).

I strongly suspect they know they are over-selling and hence are purposely deceptive. If so, shame on them.

Of course, I regret using them and do not recommend them unless you pay 1-2k.

I am not bitter. Just trying to be honest with a good heart. Hopefully this will result in Barrett improving their service or being more honest ... or providing helpful information to those of you considering using them.

All my best in your job search. You have special experiences and talents that will be a blessing to many.

ABOUT THE RIPOFF REPORT BELOW:

Ripoff Report would like to let readers know that Ripoff Report emailed this customer, so the member business could make things right with them. When a business joins the Corporate Advocacy Program, Ripoff Report emails everyone from the past so the member business can make things right with them. Of course, everything within reason. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses, so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer. The author of the Ripoff Report below never responded to our offer to help them.

STATEMENT FROM THE BARRETT GROUP:

This person never signed up for the service and is unfairly describing our sales process and business presence. We have many references and are happy to give them to serious customers. How does he know we send the same pricing/proposal to everyone (we don't). And how can he criticize a service that he never purchased or tried?

NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED

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This group probably provides some services, but nothing like they advertise or promote.  I contacted this group from the internet and went through 2 rounds of interviews.  Michael was very professional, and said all of the right things.  The first tipoff is that they are under-priced, but ask for the money upfront.  $9-12k for any job filling.  They claim most of their clients are in the 7 figure range, that would be way underpriced for the service they claim to be offering.  On the flip side headhunters charge 20%+, they get paid when they fill the job, and they get paid well.  

Here is how they work, on the first call they make claims about 3000 applications/month, 300 accepted per year.  They give you an overview to the process that makes it sound like you are essentially interviewing with them.  They will tell you the price, but may leave out the important part about it being upfront, they make it sound like they get paid when you get hired.

They setup a follow-up to supposedly further qualify you, with basic business questions.  They will make it sound like your experience and resume is a perfect fit, that is what scammers do!!!  

From there they will probably tell you that the committee is meeting within the next week and ask if you want to be presented, no fast/hard sell, very professional.  After that, you will be accepted, but your handler will be a little unhappy because x other candidates didn't get accepted.  Further, you won't get to talk to any of your 'team' until after you have paid, because they aren't assigned to you until after the 'custom' contract is signed and they are paid.

So how do you know they are a scam?

1. Ask for a real life recommendation, even better, ask for 2-3 with full contact info.  They cannot provide it, after being in business for 22 years and having 1,000s of satisfied clients with great jobs, you would think they can find a verifiable recommendation.   If I had a great experience with them, I would be happy to be a reference.

1. Take a look at their LinkedIn page, is that the presence of a professional recruitment company? 

1. Take a look at their Facebook page, practically no activity.  Nothing professional about their presence

1. During one of the calls they will show you their fantastic database that they keep private, but could charge $10k+ for access to.  For a company dealing mostly with 7 figure executives, is a $100 listing app with 10-20 listings what you would expect?  Compare it to verifiable executive databases and it doesn't compare.

1. It is suspicious that everyone gets the same 'custom contract' for the same amount, ~$9000 or $12,000 depending on the 'package' you select.  

Once I asked for contact info to verify their claims it fell apart.  They sent a very unprofessional email, not even offering any way to contact a reference.  Basically trying to make it sound like it is very unprofessional to ask them for references.  I never heard from them again.

They do a great job of sounding professional and saying the right things, however they cannot provide a verifiable reference, after being in business for 22 years!  They claim to be experienced professionals in the job search/marketing arena, but cannot even have a professional online presence in 2012.  

ABOUT THE RIPOFF REPORT BELOW:

Ripoff Report would like to let readers know that Ripoff Report emailed this customer, so the member business could make things right with them. When a business joins the Corporate Advocacy Program, Ripoff Report emails everyone from the past so the member business can make things right with them. Of course, everything within reason. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses, so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer. The author of the Ripoff Report below never responded to our offer to help them.

STATEMENT FROM THE BARRETT GROUP:

This one is particularly disturbing because it is fairly recent. Why didn't this person complain to the company, to me, whose name is signed on every contract? Who is this person? I suspect this may have been written by a bitter competitor we have. Again, how can I solve an anonymous complaint?

NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED

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The Barrett Group's sales pitch is quite appealing, but after my bad experience with them I would suggest caution before signing their services agreement, so you do not end up wasting your money like I did, $12k. During their intro meeting with me, they promised that they would arrange interviews for me with prospective employers already in their database, all based on my qualifications and career objectives. The Barrett Group never delivered on this key promise. 

Then they claimed their replacement program had a success rate of 90%. All very convincing.

$12,000 later and after signing their services agreement urgently because they said they had good potential employers looking for professionals with my qualifications, my disappointment began. The sales person disappeared and the consultant that I was left with provided exactly the kind of services I did not need i.e. teaching me how to reach out to persons I did not know. A waste of time, money and energy.

Unfortunately, The Barrett Group is the kind of career consulting company that makes other consultants look bad. 

ABOUT THE RIPOFF REPORT BELOW:

Ripoff Report would like to let readers know that Ripoff Report emailed this customer, so the member business could make things right with them. When a business joins the Corporate Advocacy Program, Ripoff Report emails everyone from the past so the member business can make things right with them. Of course, everything within reason. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses, so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer. The author of the Ripoff Report below never responded to our offer to help them.

STATEMENT FROM THE BARRETT GROUP:

The report offers a complaint and is anonymous. We spent a great deal of time trying to identify this person to reach out to him/her to rectify the complaint, unable to identify such a person from our client roster. We can't satisfy a person we can't even identify.

NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED

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The Barrett Group is a total ripoff. When you initially contact them they make a very strong pitch and represent that finding you a job will be no problem. Then after you sign a contract with them you fill out a few questionaires that supposedly help the consultant assigned to you. At this point, I felt like I had made a good choice. However, once you have completed all the questionaires and the company has written your resume, you have a conference with your consultant who basically tells you to network. If your networking doesn't work out The Barrett Group then sends mass mailings to certain geographic areas and tells you to call these people up and "network". What's even more ridiculous is that the contacts on the mass mailings are not always correct. It's a total scam. The resume The Barrett Group wrote for me is good, but that is the only thing the company has done that was helpful. Basically, they just tell you to do things that you read in business magazines all the time. It's very upsetting because I am in a terrible work situation and The Barrett Group took advantage of it. Now, I'm still in a terrible work environment, but I'm much poorer because of the fee I had to pay The Barrett Group. Anonymous houston, Texas
U.S.A.