Boylstongroup.com - what are they?

H T Associates Inc in Arlington Heights is the same type. There are people in this company who are like suckers. Once they have your name and number, you are screwed. They will give you a call every 2 months and check on you. If you dont lift the phone, they call from another phone number in an hour. They never get you the right Job, but instead repeat the same BS Question like "We are looking for a position blah blah...and If you are kind enough to point me in the right direction". Basically they want phone numbers of more people looking for jobs. Though they are recuiters, they basically try to work for the company and cheat you on the salary, benefits and others. They are a bunch of screwed up people.

HT Associates
3030 West Salt Creek Lane
Arlington Hts, IL 60005-5000
(847) 577-0300

Atlantis got such a bad reputation they had to change their name to Jobspring partners.
The first interview I went to was cancelled but no one ever bothered to tell me. The headhunter apoligised and said he forgot to call me. He musta been to worried about making his quota of placements to worry too much about a little thing like a phone call to me the candidate.
The second interview actually happened but the job was far quite different from what I was told during the pre-screen the recruiter told me about.

I am interviewing with them now...what does ARPO mean?

I worked for Stride and Associates under the Financial Sector, C.Bridges. After reading all of these posts I want to share my opinion.. Because let’s face it, that’s exactly what all these posts are, all opinions and perspectives. There are many candidates, job seekers and hiring managers that have had extremely positive experiences with Stride or it wouldn’t still be in business today after its founding in 1989.

In my opinion, some of the information above is accurate and some is vastly over exaggerated.
To all you ex-Stride employees out there (and I know there’s a multitude of you) – I would like to know how many of you are where you are today because of the foundation and discipline you learned at Stride. You bash it but, many previous Stride-ers go on to be entrepreneurs, start their own recruiting firms, join with the competition and are very successful, etc .. all because of the confidence they gained in their time with Stride.

If you are a previous employee, you can’t help but look back on the experience and think to yourself, "Wow, that was easily the most challenging and eye-opening life experience I have ever had or could ever have." There isn’t any amount of textbooks/school education that can teach you what you learn. You learn a lot about who you are and what you can handle. If you want to grow professionally and personally more than you ever have in your life, work there.

I graduated from college and it was the first job I took. I only worked there for 4 months however, after I left I got offered every job I interviewed at. I’m not trying to sound arrogant here, I negotiated for my current salary with the skills I learned at Stride. I’m now working for a AAA rated Fortune 200 company as a recruiter making a salary of 71k + unlimited incentives this year, I graduated from a small liberal arts college LAST YEAR.

To the post complaining about “Happy Hour.” If you find grabbing drinks after work to be an unnecessary thing and you can’t stand up for yourself and go home, then sales/simple social norms of life isn’t for you. It was never mandated and people were only there who wanted to be.

There have been some pretty good comments on Stride and Associates (Boylston Group, Macarthur and associates, Atlantis Partners, etc. I worked for Atlantis Partners for about a year. Most people posting on here were there for only a couple months. I got to see the inner workings of this company and how they operate. I can tell you right now that if you are looking to get into headhunting or recruiting this company is one of the best to be trained at. The morning meetings and the trainings were in-valuable. No of course with the good comes the bad. We were under paid, over worked and many times the wool over your eyes. They don't pay overtime which I still believe is illegal. They require you to work 50 hrs a week and anything over that is considered to be over time. There must be something illegal going on there. The comp. so everyone knows they pay a 30k base. It takes 6-8 months and 4-6 placements to be able to make any more here. I placed 3 100k DBA's in my first 2 months and did not make a dime off the placements. I was told that this was part of my training and everyone goes through it. Even when you make it to a full-desk or commissionable recruiter the splits are so low that you would have to place 10 people a month. Anyone in the per-placement business knows that this is a very high number and almost impossible. Oh also I worked for this guy named Henry Boulous. He worked in Orange County then re-located back to the east coast. What a slim ball he was. Stole deals left and right from his own team. Overall my opinion is that the training was awesome, I was able to build up my phone voice and be able to talk for hrs straight. The negatives are too many to list. I would say be very cautious if you are looking to work for this company. Make sure you doo the re-search and ask a ton of questions to make sure it's the right fit for you.

Good luck!

I just have to set the record straight here. Recruiting is a part of the sales industry. How do you think they have jobs to send you out to? If you're not cut out for sales, you're just not. That's no fault of theirs. They give college graduates a great opportunity to get hands-on sales experience. They walk you through it and give you valuable skills to take with you to future opportunities.

I think the problem candidates may have with the company is that they just aren't used to the way recruiting firms work. Their job is to get you the most money possible. The recruiting firm gets a percentage based on what you make so of course they are going to make that as high as possible. The difficult part, and the reason to use a recruiting firm, is that they have to work with the employer to get you the job. If the salary is not what you were hoping for, turn it down. Don't blog about how you shouldn't have taken it.

And now let me address ARPO. By getting your interview history it gives them leverage to speed up the process of getting you interviews. Honestly, they know almost every open job on the market. They may not necessarily be working it, but mentioning a company name is not going to deny you the job. If you did well in your interview and deserve it, you'll get it. And believe me about leverage. If you tell a client that the candidate they are interested in just had a second interview with Disney, the client will be instantly more interested in them and want to get them before Disney gets the chance to. Make sense?

Ok and now the re-branding. The company has promoted new leadership and put new sales models into effect as well as put importance on building relationships rather than a hard sell. There is nothing dishonorable about that. If you became the CEO of a company and wanted to change the entire structure of it wouldn't you want the name to reflect that? In my experience with this company the employees have been nothing but professional. They like to have a good time but who doesn't?

I must also say employees are never forced to go to happy hours, stay past 6 or 6:30p, get in before 8 or 8:30a, get their managers lunch, or any of the other ridiculous claims previous "employees" of 3 months would like to claim. It's sad but it sounds like some competitors may have written a few of these. Competitors recruit from this company's employees because they offer such an extensive training program, which is really just a testament to their skills.

I got a contract job through them recently, originally I interviewed thinking it was going to be for one hourly rate, but when the deal was offered, it was at $10/hr less. I didn't refuse, and that's on me, and I've heard of worse from recruiting companies than to try to get a discounted hourly rate, but I did get a general bad feeling from the experience.

In short...they will lie and waste your time.
I actually sat in their office listening to them talk to each other about lying to people who sent them resumes and employers.

I wasted 3-4 hours on them, do not let them happen to you
AVOID them if you value your time.

Here is the full story:

Some time back I was looking for job and I get a call from, oh lets call her, Marina. She said she is a recruiter for a company named "Blah", some this and that company or such other.

She said she found my resume and she has a position she is trying to fill. She asked if I'd like to come in and interview with the EMPLOYER. I ask several times, to make sure its not a recruiter interview. She says EMPLOYER will be there to interview me. I said send me the job description and I'll consider it. She said that the job description involves a test that I have to email back before the interview.

It sounded decent, so I had her send me the description and test. I googled around, the "Blah" company looked like a decent company.

So I emailed back and said let set up the interview, which she be best be done this week. That sounded strange but I set it up for the next day, and she insisted I get the test in before. So rearranged some errands I really need to run, finished the test and sent it off.

I go to their office and sit in the reception area for 5 minutes listening to recruiters dissing people who sent them resumes and how best to lie to them.
Things like:

"I'll schedule that developer to do the interview at at least 2 companies, then call and cancel it saying they foudn some body so I can keep him on the dangling"

"And why even tell them the position has been filled, bring him and Bob there will pretend he is employer interviewing" and etc...

"Lets get some of those data entry people we have and send them to that job, so we can keep the quota."

I decide right than and there this is obviously not a decent company. Now I kinda curious to see what they will try to pull on me.

Marina comes out and tells me she will be right with me and to create an account on their system. I fake it.

She comes back and say to come in. I ask if they employer is here yet and she looks at me blankly, then 10 seconds later that this is pre screener. I tell her that as she told me I am expecting the EMPLOYER to interview me. She then tells me that he rescheduled and will be here tomorrow and that I need to meet her for a pre screener. I tell her that I'll come back tomorrow for the EMPLOYER and I ask her what time.

She then proceeds to tell me, well the EMPLOYER actually will be here next week and ask me with attitude "Well are you coming in". It becomes clear she is lying all the time.

So I started yelling at her about how she wasted my time, how I rearranged other appointments for her.

Yelling seemed best as she did not strike me as a person who would care about you telling her to leave you alone in normal voice. I then walk out. I get home, email her with documentation of her lies and how I will make sure to tell all my developer friends to never use them.

That did not stop the others in their group from calling me every other week. I must have yelled at least 6-7 people to stop calling me before they did.

As I said, avoid them if you value your time.

Just a heads up that they are now under the name Workbridge Associates...worked there out of college a couple of years back with the intention of earning some money for law school..left quickly as it is as all of you describe...had to wipe from my resume just to keep the stink off of me...yiiiikes

So everyone knows, the Boylston Group has changed their name to Jobcircle Partners. They did this because of their bad repuation around the country, and hope to fool people. Also, Macarthur and Remington, both owned by the infamous Stride and Associates parent company, have changed their name to Workbridge Associates for the same reasons. This type of thing shows why you should not only never hire this company, but also never work for this company. Poor young people made to "drink the kool-aid" with promises of wealth.

Thanks for the heads-up. I almost wasted some time with this. I'm glad I didn't give any names or contact numbers. I don't need people regretting having let me use them as a reference.

This company is a pyramid scheme. I would know because I worked there for 3 agonizing and anxiety laden months. Yeah the managers make alot of money because they drank the "juice" and kissed alot of ass.
Hardly and of their sales candidates reap what they sow. They are disrespected, yelled at, forced to get the MANAGERS LUNCH everyday. You get into work at 7:15 and you would think by 5:30 they would call it a day...OH NO, thats just when the managers decide to do an ARPO FEAST!!! An ARPO feast is when each candidate digs into their files and pulls up all old resumes of people they never places and calls them. They say that they wanted to check in and see how things were going, if they were still looking for a job, if so-they would pitch a fake job or a job that they might not even be fit for, and also find out where they have been interviewing and the managers name. IF they are not looking, they say-OH cool,where did you take a job? Who hired you? They ask questions to get "LEADS" so they can call more managers and push more candidates on them. ALl of this is done so that information can be gathered, but I have never seen BOYLSTON place someone they have already interviewed before once that person has been "FILED". When they bring IT candidates into the office and interview them, they then as a team go over the person and decide if they are HOT CANDY...if so, they focus on placing that person...if not they are filed!!

So this ARPO feast could take until about 8:30pm. A 12-13 hour day...all so that you can have your managers be on your back all day long and bark at you like you are an insignificant piece of crap.

You get home and you are so tired that you go to bed at 9pm and are expected back in the office the next day at 7:15. Once you get to the office the next day you will walk over to another company that STRIDE AND ASSOCIATES OWNS...and have a company meeting there. ALl the while people are stealing leads, and candidate information during the meeting. It is very sneaky, manipulative and competitive in all the wrong ways.

Most of the higher management in Stride and Associates have all relocated from other offices so they really have no friends in the city they are living in besides the people they work with. Managers make their sales people their bitches and your always doing things for them, like getting lunch, or coffee, or buying the office dunkin donuts if you are 2 minutes late past 7:15. YOU also have to go to HAPPY HOUR EVERY THURSDAY, and if you have other plans, dont even think about it. Apparently it is disrespectful to want to spend anytime with your family, friends and significant others.

Over the 3 months I was working there at least 7-10 people either quit or started and quit either that day, or within a week. HIGH TURNOVER RATE IN THIS COMPANY!!!

Stride and Associates is not for people who value themselves and their quality of life...because there is no quality of life if you work here!

I too worked at MacArthur Assc. in Dallas under a New Yorker named Sean. Best salesman I ever saw, but this dude had some pretty bad self image and self esteem issues.

Let me tell you, this place is a freakin scam, no if's and or but's. If you're in IT, avoid these assholes, seriously. I worked there for 6 months, made two placements, netted the co over $100G, and still made no upward growth and nothing past 30K. I've never been disrespected in a work environment like I was at MacArthur. I feel worse for you candidates who are none the wiser.

One thing I'll say though, this experienced cut my teeth in sales razor sharp. Since this job, I have stayed in sales and never NOT gotten a job I've interviewed for. Plus, it seasoned me to be competitive and to also realize that at anytime somewhere someone is being sold.

As a former employee, I can tell anyone that this is the worst of the worst. I am not a disgruntled ex employee either, I left on my own terms and have a great job currently. Let me just tell you how they REALLY work over there.

First off, Stride and Associates owns Atlantis Partners, Boylson Group, C. Bridges Assoc., MacArthur Assoc. Napier Partners, and Remington International (all very fancy names!) They have two of each company set up in each city so they can call more companies without annoying people (it's better if 3 people from Atlantis and 3 people from MacArthur calling than 6 from just one company). It's funny how some hiring managers hate MacArthur but love Atlantis, NEWS FLASH: THEY ARE THE SAME COMPANY! They are all in the same meetings and learn the same coniving tactics from the same managers!

I would say 70% of the recruiters there have been working there for 2 months or less. They just cycle people in and out. The way they hire people is they search for kids that have just come out of college, want a job and don't know any better. They basically promise you a management position in about a year in which "you'll be running your own business." They promise you the world basically and all you have to do is work 50 hours a week, for $30k for a year while making $0 on commissions (until of course you're a manager running your own business). But to the common college kid, this is the fast track to success.

Anyways, so when they do trap you, every morning you have a meeting to learn the basics of what you are trying to do. You learn a little about the technological terms so that you don't sound like a complete idiot on the phone. Then they have you call people from Monster.com. They have you say that you have a great job that is a perfect fit and that you need to call them back ASAP. 9 times out of 10 they don't have anything. They are using your resume to leverage a hiring manager. They also use your manager to see where you have worked at, and call those companies to see if they are hiring.

As an employee, you are required to bring in 5 candidates a week, that is your quota. So they really don't have anything for you most of the time but just want to get you in so they don't get in trouble. Not only is bringing in a candidate good because they don't get yelled at, but they are going to ask you at the end of the interview all the places you are interviewing at. They will say it is so they don't submit your resume there, but then they say they won't send your resume without you knowing. THEY ASK WHERE YOU ARE INTERVIEWING SO THEY CAN CALL THERE AND TRY AND PLACE SOMEONE ELSE THERE! Their little show continues after you are done "interviewing" in their boiler room atmosphere as they bring out people on their team to talk to you. This is just a nice break in the day for them since they are all basically prisoners, minus the managers of course.

So let's get to the interviews they get you out on. The way they pick these jobs up are easy, they go to the job boards (monster, careerbuilder, indeed.com) and demand the hiring manager on the phone. They will do anything to get the tech director on the phone, mainly lying. Then once they get them on the phone they say "I have a candidate I know is perfect for the open job." Funny thing is they just found the candidate on Monster a couple of days ago. Then from there they try and get the hiring manager to set aside a few hours to come interview at the recruiter's office. Keep in mind you get bonus points as a recruiter if you can trick the hiring manager to coming in. If they can't do that, then they will just settle for sending people to their site. They won't send over resumes until the last minute because they basically want to send get as many people in front of the hiring manager as possible. This helps their chance of doing the deal, which is funny because they don't get any commissions. Only their manager's get a commission. How this is fair is beyond me. It is a pyramid scam. They use everyone from the employees to the candidates.

Also, when they bring candidates in they ask what's the lowest you'll go in terms of salary. They ask the managers, what's the absolute highest they'll go in paying someone. So say you say, I want to make $75k, that's the lowest I'll go. They will find a manager that wants to hire someone for $65k. The recruiter will basically try and negotiate a $70k salary. They will tell the hiring manager how great this guy is and that he is a steal at $70k, even though they said the highest they can go is $65k. They will also say that if you don't hurry and hire him, they will miss out because he is interviewing all over town right now and "if you like him, that means someone else does too." Then they will tell the candidate that $70k is the best they can get in this economy. That the job they have lined up is at a great company and there is tons of potential to make even more than $75k.

The recruiters get judged off of how many managers they can get on the phone, how many hiring managers they can get to say "yes, I will see your people," how many managers they can trick into coming into their office and how many people they can throw in front of the managers.

It really is a waste of everyone's time. For hiring managers, all you have to do is put up a better job post and have your HR call people that post their resumes online and then you won't have to deal with unqualified recruiters. Oh, and if you do decide to use these guys, they say that they are a premiere company and deserve 33%, they'll take the standard 20% every time. For candidates, they are using you to see what companies you have worked at in the past to call them and to see where you are interviewing to call these people too so they can try and send people to that job (that is their hottest lead). To people that are thinking of working there, there will be a new set of faces around you every 2-3 months. I made the company over $250k, worked there for a year (wasn't a manager) and was making $34k with $0 in commissions. They just have people coming in and out all the time, everyone there is a pawn in their pyramid scheme.

Hope this helps everyone!

Boylston is a bunch of car salesmen. I am an IT Manager and tried to use them to fill some spots. They use their candidates as bargaining chips, don't really care about your schedule, mass interview 20 candidates in an hour, call you NON-STOP etc. They would even call other numbers in our trunk block and try to get people in the office to find me. The topper was when I was asked by the recruiter to "help him out" to set the record for candidates interviewed. Red flag, but I figured I would help him out if he kicked me down some decent candidates. Too bad they were not decent. Keep in mind, this is for sys admin positions that has no time to learn on the fly. I had one candidate that had computers as a hobby, never worked in IT. Yea, that is what I need in my group. Nice guy, but he was a scuba diver. (True story) This particular recruiter kept nagging and nagging. I told him I would never use him again and he never got the point. Now he has been "promoted" to another office and another recruiter calls at least once every three weeks, without getting the hint. I just stuck with Monster, which can be painful to find the right candidates, but not nearly as painful as Boylston.

the boylstongroup recruiter called me at work and wouldnt get off the phone... my manager seemed to think i was looking for another job.

Randall is the worst recruiter ever, they should get rid of him!!!

I will NEVER EVER work with The Boylston Group for job searches. They are a bunch of used car sales people/telemarketers that's rude and tries and extract as much information about who you know and who you worked for so they can go after them and use you for information. DO NOT WORK WITH THEM!!

You can only call them between a set hours because the rest of the time they are busy phone harassing job seekers and companies!

They don't give a rat's ass about you. All you are is just someone they can use to make money out of. Don't bother going in to their offices. A waste of time and gas!!

DO NOT WORK WITH THEM!! I can suggest 10 other way WAY better recruiters that actually treat you with respect instead of just a piece of meat they can use!

They are a real placement firm (head hunters--whatever you want to call them) I interviewed with in them back in 02-06 in the chicago location, it consisted of about a half hour interview with 2 people (elizabeth & some other girl) and then meeting the rest of the "team" afterward. I dont' think very highly of them. I interviewed for somthing way under my skill set, discussed the salary and job expectations and never heard back from them again after that. It was a waste of my time. Since then i have been called by 4 people from that firm wanting me to interview with them again. I explain to them i already met them, recall to them the interview, co-workers names, job description ...

So i'm going to pass on interviewing with them again. Hope this helps.

Cool

I responded to a post on another site the other day. The candidate had some concerns about the behaviour of a recruiter that contacted him. The recruiter provided very little info on the firm, was pressuring him somewhat for information, and the firm name seemed to be associated with 2 or 3 other domain names etc, when he researched them on google, etc. He concluded that they might have been some sort of scam. The incident reveals the risks of not having a two way dialog with candidates, and not sharing information about yourself, your firm and your background, rather than just drilling the candidate for information. Here's my response:

First, you could be correct. I don't know this firm, and there might be something screwy going on. As I note in my blog, candidates OUGHT to ask a lot of questions themselves, not just be on the answering end of things, coughing up all kinds of information.

However, there can be legitimate reasons for some of what you saw. I am familiar with one of the names you ran across, techiegold, which I believe is some kind of co-op job board. In my experience, recruiting firms frequently have different firms for different segments of the business, ie. one firm that does candidate or executive coaching (which you need to be careful of, since this area usually involves costs from the candidate side). Firms often separate their perm recruiting business and temp or contract business, to develop different brand identities, and for legal and HR reasons due to the fact that you may not want to have the same HR policies and benefits for the recruiting staff as the contract staff that works there. (Perm recruiters don't hire candidates, they charge a fee to the client for placing. Temp or contract groups hire the candidate and bill out to the clients for those people's services).

A firm may have acquired another and maintain both the old name and the new name, if they have good, well-established identity and reputation.

All of your comments are fair questions. Really the recruiter blew it by not engaging you in a more 2 way conversation to educate you about him/her and their firm, rather than just rushing you along.

today i received a message from a gentlemen who stated his name was "mike" from "the boylston group". he stated that he had stumbled upon my resume (monster.com) and was looking to fill several available open positions for "network engineers". seeing as to how the call was totally out of the blue and sounded somewhat suspicious i googled up "the boylston group" and happened to stumble upon your blog post. perhaps i'll give the gentlemen a call sometime tomorrow to see if he proceeds to employ the same methods and tactics that you described. i proceeded to perform a NPA-NXX lookup on the telephone number (210-996-XXXX) which he left in his message which returned the following information:

Results for NPA-NXX 310-996: Location CA
Address 1544 COTNER AVE
Use code AS [Assigned to a code holder (e.g., Wireless, ILEC, CLEC) for normal use.]
OCN 2319
Company VERIZON CALIFORNIA INC.-CA (GTE)
Local RC [W ANGELES]
Switch RCs [BEVERLYHLS] [W ANGELES]
CLLI [WLANCAXFDS1]
IG
Switch type
LATA
RBOC
Also serves 310-231 310-235 310-268 310-270 310-312 310-444 310-445 310-473 310-477 310-478 310-479 310-575 310-914 310-966 310-996

proceeding to dig a little deeper i determined found that "the boylston group" is in fact owned by a larger group named "stride & aAssociates" who list the following address on their website:

the boylston group
10990 wilshire blvd.
suite 250
los angeles, ca 90024
(310) 996-0200
fax: (310) 996-0071
email: la@boylstongroup.com

Google Map

windows live local

is anyone familar with "the boylston group" or possibly know any information regarding this "agency"? i'm sure there must be others that have been contacted recently by individuals from this agency.

#john "r0t0r00t3r" jolly
#passivemode security group
#http://passivemode.net