A culture of self-preservation and elbow rubbing to the top
Pros
AMS is a global organisation that gives you exposure to blue chip clients. Depending on the client and management, you will have more independence to work directly with your lines of business. Compensation was competitive for an RPO, but could have been better. AMS did very poorly this year, so no one received bonuses across the entire organisation, which was another let down and lowered team morale even further than it already was.
Cons
POOR "leadership." It's challenging when you ask questions to the person who is supposed to be the leader of the account on-site and they always defer to someone else because they do not know the answer or anything about processes on said account. My experience at AMS was quite poor. It is a culture of self-preservation and lacks strong leadership. "Management" was more interested in appeasing the client and managing up than pushing back on any of their nit-picky criticisms to try and avoid paying fees. On my first day we had a team meeting where everyone was berated over the most minuscule things. I recall thinking to myself that the things the team was being torn apart for were quite petty in nature. In hindsight, I think we spent more time in the conference room hearing an extended list of what we were doing wrong than anything to actually uplift our spirits or praise our good/hard work. Team morale was the worst I have ever been a part of and I have never seen a group of more miserable recruiters who hated their job and the atmosphere. I am unsure the purpose of having two managers to manage a very small group of recruiters. There was no distinct leadership from one of the managers (though the less senior manager essentially managed the entire team but I am sure the former took all the credit with upper management). However, the one who was actually managing was an extreme micro-manager to the point where all the team were just irritated and frustrated since we were all experienced recruiters with upwards of 10 years experience. Towards the end of my time there it just appeared as if management was trying to preserve their positions on the ever-shrinking account, rather than do what is best for the team/client. Work/life balance is nearly non-existent and the ability to work from home is on a case by case basis and under extreme scrutiny. I was once told by my direct manager that I had to ask two weeks in advance to work from home; I had to change a doctor's appointment because of this. I found this rather interesting considering AMS likes to purport that they are big on flex working, etc. Not so much the case for the account I was on.