Toxic culture, egotistical Directors and an archaic recruitment model - Executive Consultant TH Daniels Employee Review

I should've taken my first red flag at interview stage, and I do blame myself for my naivety. When I interviewed, they outlined the contracted hours as 7:30am - 7pm with an early finish on a Friday. They prefaced this by giving examples of some consultants working weekends and as long as 11pm. It was clear, at interview stage, that they gave no value to work life balance and instead encouraged their employees to work as long as possible. As I said, I still signed the contract, so I do take responsibility for not taking this as a major warning sign of what was to come. As a graduate, I was excited to get into the corporate world and learn from successful people however, I was hugely disappointed. Training consisted of 2 weeks of classroom style lessons on the logistics of a placement. Learning this is an important part of recruitment but two weeks was far too much and not enough attention was paid to sales techniques. Post training, I thought my Director would be there to guide and teach me how to be a good recruiter. Instead, he had very little interest in the content and quality of my work and just concentrated on KPI's and getting numbers on the board. They almost expected their graduates to already know how to be a recruiter and if you made a mistake, you would get a slap on the wrist. The day to day at this company is sending out blanket emails to clients you have no relationship with in the hopes that they may like the candidate you have sent out. Whilst this does work in the short term, there is no effort to building relationships beyond this. I tried to suggest ways in which we could add value to our clients and ensure we built solid, long-term relationships, but I was told to do these activities in my own time. To add, the Directors try to mould their consultants into mini versions of themselves and any difference is weaned out of you. When joining my second recruitment company, my biggest criticism in training is that I should be myself more. My new recruitment company told me that I was likeable, and clients like to work with genuine people. At TH Daniels I was told the opposite, and in one of my appraisals, I was specifically told to try and be like one of the other consultants. The lies and deceit were plentiful and so obvious. It is laughable looking back because they were not clever about the lies they told. The Directors were so obviously lying and had no shame about it. It would be one thing said one day and the opposite said another and if you tried to question it you would be shouted it. There is no consistency. The Directors swan in and out of the office with no explanation and sometimes no warning that they won't be in that day or that they may be late. However, if you need to take an hour out to do something urgent you are told that you must make the time up in your free time. The culture and the ideals that they perpetuate are extremely toxic. They hold so much value over materialism and spending money. To give an example, the directors bring suit tailors into the office to measure them up in front of everyone and then they boast about the price of the suit. Bearing in mind that they have no issue coming in and out of the office as they please, why can't they do this on their own time? Whilst I was working at TH Daniels, a couple of people left the company. These people left truthful reviews on Glassdoor and the Directors pushed all their employees to leave good reviews. Please note that the good reviews for this company are there because the directors made everyone write them. If you are currently working at TH Daniels, there are other good and moral companies out there and recruitment does not have to be like this. If you are a graduate who is thinking about joining TH Daniels, please consider other options.