SEP was the worst nightmare every company has to encounter at least once. All the way from forcing resumes of development staff down your throat to then filing false lawsuits against your company saying you stole their talent - these guys need some guidance on how to run a business.
Strategic Employment Partners representatives constatly pestered via email saying how "no contract, no obligation, don't worry", and when I finally gave in just to get the guy off my back, he set up interviews right away with a few people. I told him we don't want to use a recruiter because we don't like the high rates and he kept saying, no contract don't worry just take a look, we can work a deal out. Trying to get the interviews over with quickly to get back to my day, I noticed something odd. The people all had a pattern - they were telling me that they weren't sure why they were in front of me but that some guy (the guy who gave me resumes) had stopped them in the lobby or hallway and asked if they wouldn't mind stepping into a conference room with me.
The people I was talking to were not even qualified nor did they want to work on our projects - they were just as confused as I was. The last guy couldn't come in, but the recruiter told me to give him a call. Later that evening, I was speaking to the candidate and within the first few minutes he told me he had already applied earlier that day for the position I was calling him about, and sure enough there was his resume in my inbox. I told the recruiter I was not interested in any of his BS people he put in front of me and he finally agreed to stop bothering me.
3 months later, they came calling me up saying that we had hired a person they introduced us to (even though that guy had applied to the position via email earlier). We had not hired him, that guy turned out to be decent in one area so he did some contractual work for us and that was it. SEP demanded 20% of a salary that they made up out of nowhere saying that was their fee and we owed it. Being a small business, we had plenty of other things to worry about than some kid bothering us with a false invoice. They sent a collection agency after us for $14k, which they said was 20% of $70,000. First of all....where did they get the number $70k? for a contractor? And 20%....I had told them earlier that even if we did go with them, 20% was way too high.
This was clearly a grasp for money...maybe the company was struggling due to its incapable management and staff, who knows. We could tell that this was a grasp in thin air because they sent 3 collections agencies after us, all that work off of a success fee and once our lawyers told them to get it together and lay off the free help, they went away for a bit. A few months later, they decided to come after us with a suit...maybe they just really needed that $14k! In the "evidence" they submitted, there was no contract (as they said, no obligation), incomplete email threads (where I told him and screenshotted to him that the contractor had reached out himself), as well as a complete garbage of a description of what happened. Anyways, they dragged it out some more and it came to a point where we needed to decide whether it was worth taking them to court (we would obviously win with our evidence presented properly and our attorneys told us this too) for $x amount of dollars or to just give them an offer (which is what they ultimately wanted) of that same amount, but be sure that we'd never have to deal with their assinine staff again.
TL;DR: If you want to work with a recruiting company that will treat you like garbage, try to find loopholes, be rude to you and your staff via email, and then drag you out using the free services that are available while you defend yourself with proper lawyers, SEP is the company to use! What a pathetic bunch.
Strategic Employment Partners Reviews
SEP was the worst nightmare every company has to encounter at least once. All the way from forcing resumes of development staff down your throat to then filing false lawsuits against your company saying you stole their talent - these guys need some guidance on how to run a business.
Strategic Employment Partners representatives constatly pestered via email saying how "no contract, no obligation, don't worry", and when I finally gave in just to get the guy off my back, he set up interviews right away with a few people. I told him we don't want to use a recruiter because we don't like the high rates and he kept saying, no contract don't worry just take a look, we can work a deal out. Trying to get the interviews over with quickly to get back to my day, I noticed something odd. The people all had a pattern - they were telling me that they weren't sure why they were in front of me but that some guy (the guy who gave me resumes) had stopped them in the lobby or hallway and asked if they wouldn't mind stepping into a conference room with me.
The people I was talking to were not even qualified nor did they want to work on our projects - they were just as confused as I was. The last guy couldn't come in, but the recruiter told me to give him a call. Later that evening, I was speaking to the candidate and within the first few minutes he told me he had already applied earlier that day for the position I was calling him about, and sure enough there was his resume in my inbox. I told the recruiter I was not interested in any of his BS people he put in front of me and he finally agreed to stop bothering me.
3 months later, they came calling me up saying that we had hired a person they introduced us to (even though that guy had applied to the position via email earlier). We had not hired him, that guy turned out to be decent in one area so he did some contractual work for us and that was it. SEP demanded 20% of a salary that they made up out of nowhere saying that was their fee and we owed it. Being a small business, we had plenty of other things to worry about than some kid bothering us with a false invoice. They sent a collection agency after us for $14k, which they said was 20% of $70,000. First of all....where did they get the number $70k? for a contractor? And 20%....I had told them earlier that even if we did go with them, 20% was way too high.
This was clearly a grasp for money...maybe the company was struggling due to its incapable management and staff, who knows. We could tell that this was a grasp in thin air because they sent 3 collections agencies after us, all that work off of a success fee and once our lawyers told them to get it together and lay off the free help, they went away for a bit. A few months later, they decided to come after us with a suit...maybe they just really needed that $14k! In the "evidence" they submitted, there was no contract (as they said, no obligation), incomplete email threads (where I told him and screenshotted to him that the contractor had reached out himself), as well as a complete garbage of a description of what happened. Anyways, they dragged it out some more and it came to a point where we needed to decide whether it was worth taking them to court (we would obviously win with our evidence presented properly and our attorneys told us this too) for $x amount of dollars or to just give them an offer (which is what they ultimately wanted) of that same amount, but be sure that we'd never have to deal with their assinine staff again.
TL;DR: If you want to work with a recruiting company that will treat you like garbage, try to find loopholes, be rude to you and your staff via email, and then drag you out using the free services that are available while you defend yourself with proper lawyers, SEP is the company to use! What a pathetic bunch.