Pros
+ Relatively easy to get hired. They'll take anyone with a degree and some experience. + Get hired at the right time of year and level of experience, and you'll be sent for a week long, all expenses paid "work-hard/play hard" training at their headquarters in Florida. + Having Randstad looks great on your resume. + Decent starting out pay depending on where you live. Good commission structure. + Depending on your branch, open door policy and approachable management. + Potential to build your own book/desk of business. + Depending on your branch and who you're working with, you can work together with colleagues for placements and get the same share. + You get the same commission split irregardless of whether or place temp or perm or outside your vertical or region. + Large database of candidates and clients/vendors. + Branches tend to be a bit anonymous and thus can have their own culture and environment different than what corporate wants. Being at a branch with great management means getting perks different than what corporate wants.
Cons
- After the training in Florida, that's really it as far as training, aside from once-a-week calls from your trainers. You're left on your own to make it for yourself. - Previous point is hit home depending on which branch you work out of. If you're stuck at a badly managed and run branch with a cut-throat environment, you're effectively doomed to fail. - Randstad takeover has changed the company culture from entrepreneurial to sales slave pit. All about metrics, KPIs/numbers, work hard/not smart. You'll waste plenty of time with worthless clients and candidates and make tons of cold calls just so you can hit your daily and weekly numbers and look good. - In that sense, you have only 30-60 days to make a placement and bring in billings, or you're out. Even sooner if you're in temp. Even if your metrics are looking good. - Some branches have a cut throat environment. Hoarding and sandbagging is rife. - Not much opportunity for promotion, advancement, and raises. - Not much in the way of resources other than what they provide you. - Still one of those companies that tightly firewall and monitor Internet. Can't even load Gmail or Yahoo. - Corporate is out of touch with branches, industry, and market. - Huge, slow, bureaucracy. Things move very slowly from branches to the top and vice versa.