The Select Group Reviews

4.2

83% would recommend to a friend

(301 total reviews)
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George Karakostantis

84% approve of CEO

77% positive business outlook

The Select Group has an employee rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 301 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The The Select Group employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

301 reviews
2.0
14 Jan 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They do provide a very positive environment when you start and they do have a very good intro training but this quickly fades once you get involved with the company. I would say that the only positive after training was the free drinks/coffee and the happy hour on Friday that is funded by the company. But please don't let this fool you into working here.

Cons

They target internal employees right out of college who are impressionable and naive. They then push these people to the absolute max with very little praise or reward. If you don't "drink the kool-aid" (literally what management says in meetings) then you will be looked at as the wrong personality for the company culture. They don't ask or request that you work late... it is expected. And the ones that don't work late... won't be there for longer than a year. Culture in this company is a little bit better than high school. Using that analogy, the employees that have been there the longest are looked at at the cool and popular ones and the ones that everyone in the company should strive to be like. They are given the freedom to do what ever they want with out consequence even if it detrimental to the company and other internal employees. Upper management will then award these individuals even if they haven't done anything to earn it. Yet as a younger employee you will be held to unrealistic goals and expectations. Account managers in this company find them self to be "gods". They will talk down and belittle the recruiters in the pit, yet their pay check is dependent upon how these recruiters perform. They find them selves to be with out consequence for any of their actions because the company looks at them as profit generators and gives them the freedom to do so. Also, since the majority of the Account Managers have been there longer and have "drank the Kool-aid", any thoughts you share or complaints you put in will be ignored because you are not viewed to be as valuable as the account managers. They have a firm believe that recruiters can be replaced and account managers are as good as their weight in gold. Upper Management has some positives but the majority of them are negative. The men who run the Raleigh office are as sexist as they come. If you don't believe me just go look at the girls that work there and then look at the ones that were turned away. It doesn't matter if the ones were turned away had more raw talent... the ones that were hired met the beauty standards that they expect of their female employees. Also, they actually ask in all of the interviews with women if they had been in a sorority and what sorority that was. They will then check to see how popular that sorority was at your college or university and see how you compare in looks to the other sisters. The CEO is a joke. I wanted to say that I liked this guy but the more you listen to him and really understand what he is saying, it is very easy to see that he is fake and superficial. He lacks substance and the general business acumen to successfully run a company. At one point in time he was dating multiple women in his own company. He was slapped in front of his whole company at a Christmas party for bringing one girl from an other office with out telling his girlfriend at the other office. This guy has 4-5 "professional coaches", the majority of these "coaches" made their fortunes cheating people out of money in the Sub- Prime mortgage industry (cause of the financial crisis in 2008). So to sum up the view of the CEO from a professional stand point, he sleeps with his internal employees, takes advice from scummy individuals and views him self as some idol to the people that work for him. Currently this company has such a turn over issue that they are offering a $2,000 dollar reward for people to refer their friends and have them stay for over 3 months. If you don't believe me about the major turn over issue they have, go to Linked-In and see how many people are former employees of The Select Group. It is quite astonishing. I feel I need to address their business tactics now that I have expressed my opinions of their internal culture and employees. If you are a contractor or consultant BEWARE!! At this current time they have a internal contest going on that will reward the recruiter and account manager who have the highest Gross Margin. Basically, they are rewarding the individuals who take the most money from their contractors. In my eyes they were asking me to not pay our consultants/contractors what they are worth and try to talk them down as much as possible. The recruiters will then omit from their conversations that they can offer you benefits, vacation or payed time off. They are instructed to do this by upper management and account managers because if they don't offer consultants/contractors this they then make a higher Gross Margin. It is very unprofessional and a slimy tactic. I support healthy gross margins in business but I don't support depriving people of what they deserve for the sole purpose of padding your pay check. I think my favorite thing about this organization is how unrealistic and unjustified their growth model is but that is a whole other conversation full of black magic and witchcraft. I feel bad and a little strange to say all of these things about this company because when I joined I felt I had made a great decision and that I was going to be making an advancement in my career. I quickly found all the information above to be very disheartening and extremely true. If you don't believe me please go check for your self. I urge you to do your research and ask questions before you become a member of this organization. There are so many better options out there for you. Don't become the next turnover statistic.

1.0
6 May 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you are just coming out of college and don't know what you want to do with your life or need somewhere to start, The Select Group will give you a shot, as long as you understand that you are no more or less important than the person next to you, and that effort, business acumen, and results fall second to favoritism and who has more available time to go to happy hours

Cons

If you have a personal life you wont be a fit because you are not expected to be home at a reasonable hour and working late is not appreciated, it is assumed. You get brought in with the guarentee that you can go down "a sales path", but the reality is if they don't want you in sales they are willing to tell a 21-23 year old that they are not fit for sales because of the skills they posses less than a year out of college based solely on the fact that they do not fit a mold. Over 50 percent of the people recruiting or not recruiters by choice, although they will tell you that they are because they bought in. The commission structure heavily favors sales with little regard to the recruiters who work just as hard, if not harder, to make placements. There are hundreds of companies in your area that will give you a much better structure out the gate. Sales people act like they are better than recruiters, talk down to recruiters, and their time is not accounted for. The company holds weekly meetings with "leadership" where they pull all of the promoted people out of the office and go into a private room 10 feet away from entry level people where they openly talk about them with little to no regard for professional ethics. Unprofessional, high school related personalities in a company that reflects so with a very low average age. Misleading for the sake of the people up top while people in the pit working day to day struggle to pay rent due to blanket compensation that does not remotely relate to the cost of living in given areas. The culture and values suggested are not reciprocated in the day to day.

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The Select Group Response
12y
Thank you for taking the time to share your review. We strive to maintain a supportive and encouraging environment to drive growth and regret that your experience was anything less. We take all feedback very seriously and encourage you to reach out to us directly with details in order to help us continue to improve the TSG experience for all of our employees.
2.0
8 Feb 2016

TSG in a Nutshell

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Sales Conference twice a year is fun. Free hotel stay, food, and alcohol. They aim for hiring people right out of college (most of the time attractive people), so it's nice to have a younger environment. That gives potential to make new friends. No real pros about the job itself, though.

Cons

During your interview, they will hype it up by talking about their "awesome company culture" and mention Friday Happy Hour or Sales Conference. Sure, that stuff is fun, but it doesn't make the job worth it. They will talk about the commission structure like it will actually make a difference on your pay check, however until you are there for a couple of years suffering through the day to day job, it won't make hardly any difference to your wallet. You make a minimum of 40 outbound calls a day to hopefully catch someone on the phone. From there, hope they are interested in hearing what you have to say. If they are, then you hope that they are actually qualified for the job. If yes to both of those, you hope your Account Manager agrees with you and sends the resume over to the hiring manager at whatever company. You could go through all of that work for the manager to say they aren’t interested in interviewing your candidate. Or then they may say yes, you lead them through the entire interview process, they get the job, and start logging hours...to find out that you only get roughly $5 added to your paycheck each week that they work 40 hours. That's hardly commission. In your interview, they won’t be transparent with you about what will be expected from you as far as hours you will be working. If you are there any later than 7:30 AM you are stared down while you walk to your desk and heaven forbid you leave at 5:00-5:15 PM. Managers will tell you that you won’t ever get taken seriously if you leave at 5:00 PM….even if you get there at 7:15 AM every day. To my recollection, the work day I interviewed for was an 8:00 AM- 5:00 PM job, but that was hardly the truth. Metrics are metrics…which you see in a lot of jobs, but everything is posted so that everyone else in the company can see it. They say it isn’t a competition, but it really kind of is when it is all laid out there for anyone in the entire company to see. If you don’t hit 40 calls a day, maybe hit 35, you will get called in for a one on one because they are “so disappointed in your performance”, but you will almost never get congratulated for your successes and hard work. The “pit” as they call it is like a high school. Everyone is in everyone’s business. Tons of gossip. I guess that goes hand in hand with them trying to recruit people who are right out of college with no real experience in anything. People just aren’t mature enough yet, and it shows every single day. Hiring people right out of college probably goes hand in hand with their high turnover rate. It is like nothing I have ever seen. Each person gets an exit interview, so you would think that with so many people leaving the company and them giving you specifics as to why, that leadership would change the way they do certain things. But nothing has changed, hence why their staff is dropping like flies. It’s one of those jobs that you might like for the first 3-4 months because everyone is fake and “welcomes” you, but then as time goes by you slowly realize what kind of company you work for. Everyone talks about everyone. Your ideas are not welcome, it is one way or the highway. One of their top things is “transparency”, but if you ever try to be honest, you will get shot down, or even fired depending on the situation. Don’t say anything you don’t want repeated, because it will go straight to leadership. It is very evident that favorites are picked. Certain people get special treatment and can get away with anything, while others are watched like hawks and treated like elementary school students. Not to mention, there are countless sleazy individuals that have been put in leadership. It’s rather entertaining to watch female coworkers flirt their way to the top. I will say, I learned a lot working with TSG, but 75% of my time there was not enjoyable in the least bit. I don’t recommend it to anyone, unless you are looking for a job where you don’t even have to use your brain that pays you the bare minimum for working way over 40 hours a week.

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The Select Group Response
10y
Thank you for your feedback. Our CEO and Chief Experience Officer read every review and take them seriously. We are working each day to ensure The Select Group remains one of the best places to work in the industry, and your input here will help us with that. TSG prides itself on having one of the most competitive total compensation packages in the staffing industry. Employees can gain units in the company by meeting and exceeding goals. We also believe strongly that success in staffing is directly related to activity. Fundamentally, meetings lead to requisitions. Requisitions lead to submissions, and submissions lead to starts. We recognize it can be a grind, and we trust this process, when followed, will lead to personal and company success. We strive to make ongoing investments to enhance the employee experience, including improvements in communication and work environment. It is our goal to have employees choose TSG as a long-term career where they can grow both personally and professionally. We believe the culture is strong and provides great opportunities for our employees.
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