Brook Street - Peterborough, Never Again

“Brook Street - Peterborough, Never Again”

Written on: 25/06/2012

Having been out of work for 4 months I started looking further afield from my home address considering relocating for work, as many other people are having to do in this current climate.
I came across Brooks Street through CVLibrary advertising a position for Admin Assistant in Cambridge, starting as soon as possible working until September with extension likely. I contacted them directly regarding the position. I contacted the consultant dealing with the position and she requested that I forward my CV so she could consider me for the role. A short while after she contacted me saying I was suitable for the role and she wanted me to come in and register. I should state that at this time I was living in West Yorkshire and had to arrange to travel down to Peterborough on limited funds. I made a note in my diary of the date, time and booked a train ticket. I travelled down and arrived at the office only time find that they were closed. Could not believe it, travelled all that way for nothing. I tried contacting them, but phones lines were off.
The following day I contacted the office and stated my displeasure at making the arrangements and arriving to a closed office and stated that as it had been their error I wanted them to compensate me for me time by reimbursing me for my train fare, to which the consultant lied to me, stated she had it down as a different date and it had been my error.
I considered forgetting the whole thing, but considered I hadn't had a job in a while it wasn't an option. I agreed to rearrange a time and made sure this time we both had the same date, confirming the morning of the day I was due.I arrived at the office, where the consultant greeted me and sat me down. The number of forms I then had to fill out, some many forms of ID required and then having to fill out online forms of info they already had, was a complete joke.
We spent about 10 minutes discussing the role, which she seemed to be evading a lot of my questions about the role, but I agreed and went ahead with the process. It took them 4 weeks to sort out my paper work, vettings and other security checks, and get me into the role, in which time I had relocated, found myself a flat and settling in. It was further week before I started the role due to more issues at their end, requesting forms and information I had already provided, waste of time.
I arrived at the place of work at 10 as agreed, and met my line Manager who didn't seem all that sure of anything. She sat me down and asked me what if anything I new about the role and I explained what I had been told about the role and length of time.
I was shocked to hear that the role I had been put forward for didn't even come close to matching what I would be doing. The role was essentially a call centre role, taking hundreds of calls a day with a small amount of paper and admin work. Essentially I would be glued to my phone all day. Adding insult to injury then came when my line Manager informed me that this position would end middle of August as the office was closing, of which I was not aware of. The consultant had also told me that she had two other temps there, or who had been there for a year and the other 6 months. Turns out that neither of them had been their longer than 4 months and had fallen prey to the same lies.

On confronting the consultant about the situation I had found myself in she completely lied again, stating that she had informed me of the office closure, that it was an admin position and she hadn't done anything wrong.

The summaries Brook Street lied on several occasions, neglected to mention certain information and has left me in a very difficult situation. My advice is never use them, if you value your career and time don't even bother, there are plenty of other good recruitment agencies who are far better and more helpful than Brook Street.