The recruitment process is flawed. If you don't advertise salaries on adverts, you're likely to lack engagement from a percentage of candidates who are suitable for the role. The range of candidates you're likely to attract is far greater with more room for non relevant candidates. The turnover of staff within Sales has been high over the time I've worked here and it's likely due to the fact we're bringing on the best of the worst, rather than giving ourselves the best chance to recruit the best individuals for the role. Ironic that our own advice is to advertise salaries. There's only a couple of reasons we don't though, salaries aren't competitive and staff in certain roles are being underpaid / overpaid.
With progression opportunities now limited across the business, it's likely roles won't go to the most suitable person but someone that will do. It does amaze me when looking at the work ethic and ability of some staff in other roles across the business, ones that are likely to be paid more than those in Sales too, yet their workload is less demanding and less stressful.
The strategy and business goals seem cloudy at best. Under Jon Wilson, he communicated our strategy clearly and we knew where we wanted to be within the market. Even through the pricing change in 2021, whilst at times it seemed rocky over the next several months, we always had clear messages that this was the right thing for us to be doing. Unfortunately since, we've had a shake up of the business and now it's anyone's guess as to where we're headed. Maybe that's unfair, I'm sure someone has a clear vision of where Totaljobs will be in the next 5 years, however this isn't being communicated and there's far too much uncertainty. Communication always ranks poorly in our internal satisfaction surveys. yet never improved.
We're in a difficult market right now and the communication from the management team is to do more, more activity and more calls. Logically, it makes sense, realistically, is this achievable? Limiting the number of accounts someone has to work limits the amount of activity they can do. How often should we contact businesses? As much as needed really but if the number of opportunities are limited, how long before we verge on pestering customers or making calls for the sake of making calls?
The business wants us to focus on quantity of activity over quality and the KPIs introduced mean one will most definitely suffer if the other is focused on. Decisions appear to be made without consulting those impacted, which isn't unusual within business of our size but changing KPIs on a month to month basis and having our MD openly question why they can't be hit without truly understanding the day to day of those in Sales leaves a bitter feeling.
We celebrated a record breaking year recently which was most likely due to our pricing structure change and businesses having to commit to using our platform at higher costs without the change to truly assess their ROI. Since then, we’ve rarely if ever hit a monthly target or budget since. The business has reacted in a poor way, panicking and making rash decisions on a monthly basis in the hope this will lead to improvements. There’s been a lot of trial and error over the last couple of years, different senior leaders brought in, different senior leaders leaving, external resources brought in, external resources quickly scrapped. The finger always points to those on the frontline. Whilst the business has repeatedly said we’ve not become poor salespeople overnight, the blame will always lie with sales. It was the sales department that were punished with 5 days back in the office if you weren’t hitting a certain percentage to target, understandable to an extent but why not the rest of the business, are we not all working together for the same goals? What’s less understandable are the false promises, from our MD advising shortly before this that we won’t be changing our hybrid working option to the change being implemented, from our CEO advising no redundancies will take place, to a decimation of staff through redundancies globally shortly after. The communication and transparency around this… even James Bond would be impressed with the covertness apparent here.
We have data advising what’s being seen in the recruitment market, a lack of vacancies and businesses tightening their wallets. We are one of the more expensive solutions out there so naturally if we’re not delivering quality, customers will look to cut their investment with us. But wait, our quantity based data and high APVs must mean businesses want to partner with us, well no, quality beats quantity, a blend of both is ideal but Totaljobs is selling quantity. We’re now also devaluing our solutions by being able to offer large discounts to new customers and throwing inventory at customers who have left us more recently, what happened to the value based selling that was preached? Whilst it’s nice we have these options to approach customers with, if this isn’t what they’re looking for then it will fall on deaf ears. I wonder if our management team have taken on board feedback from customers on how we can improve and installed anything meaningful.
We’re now at the point where performance plans are being handed out faster than junk mail, is anyone in sales not on one? What’s the plan here though, to force people to leave and put them in a position where they look for jobs elsewhere? It’s one way to cut costs for sure. We go back to KPIs once more. The business is more focused on sales making dials than having good quality conversations with customers. You can have 1 hour call or even a demo with a customer but hey, you still have to do all your dials for the day and if you don’t, you’re probably going to get told off or berated for it.
This has become more of a rant than a review of the business and to those reading from within Totaljobs, this won’t be news to you. For those reading as a potential employee, Totaljobs’ future is rocky at best. If you’re starting out on your career journey and looking for experience, this could be the place for you. If you’re looking for a rewarding career, build a time machine, go back a few years and you might have that here, right now, not so much.
