Apollo 

What a waste of time that meeting was. It was clear very early on that they were only interested in your cash. I found Martin extremely rude and he made it clear that he had no interest in getting to know me as an individual (strange for a recruitment firm).

Same experience. Had initial meeting in Birmingham. Just didn't feel right.
Luckily I haven't parted with any money, found these reviews first.
It was all very flimsy, unspecific.
I'm going to pass on their offer of help

Now known as HPLO. Received an email also. Exactly the same MO. Very unspecific basic website for a ‘professional’ organisation.

Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed this 'business'; you have saved me a train journey and several hours of my time. I too had the email out of the blue and after a conversation with a very personable chap at NWTM Manchester, I arranged a meeting with their Director for this morning.

My gut instinct was that something was 'off' about the whole thing and reading this thread before leaving the house has confirmed this. So thanks again and I hope these reviews save others their time and their dignity too!

I was contacted by these people, much the same as all the below reviews state.
I was invited to a meeting in Castle Donington with a person Claiming to be a Director.
I heard the same spiel as described below but wasn’t asked for money. If that would have happened I’d have left.
Since then no reply to Emails or messages, which having found this thread I’m now pleased about!
Now operating under the name of MDHC (at the moment)
Avoid at all costs

I am casually looking for a new role and have recently put my CV up on a few job sites. After receiving an unsolicited email offering a meeting with a ‘Director’ I went along to an introductory meeting. The people who I was in contact with when arranging this only ever referred to a ‘Director’ which was a bit odd.

Next thing that seemed odd was the company were not listed on the list board of companies in the building. Seemed very much like serviced offices.

During the meeting it went full on hard sell although weirdly without being given any specifics or material to look at it or anything really. For an as yet unspecified price they work with candidates over 7 sessions to launch your profile and support your job hunting. They claimed that 80% of open jobs are not available on the market. They would help you access those.

Thinking that none of this sounded right I tried looking for references and could not find any independent ones. Then I found similarities to a company called HTCE which then looked identical. Then I found this thread and it all fell into place.

Whilst I suspect that they do offer a tangible service I won’t be taking it any further. Thank you to other reviewers.

These cowboys are on the same wagon train as Taylor-CVS, avoid both if you value your money

AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.

They are absolutely useless.

Have lost 3600!!! Still cannot believe this :(.

Just simple example - received first "opportunity" from their network at the end of June with the contract signed on the 23rd of Feb ( I have got a new job already ).

Apollo are cowboys. They use high pressure sales to convince clients they are paying £3600 (£3k +vat) for a tailored executive level service when the reality is its a tick box one size fits all basic CV/interview & networking package anyone could get for a 3rd of the price.

Also all their sales people are sales "Directors" and all the career consultants are "Senior" consultants to help the illusion its an "executive" service.

Plus much of their material is out of date. Partly - im told - because the company is owned by a past retirement age relic from the 80s who isn't aware the world of recruitment has massively moved on.

They say they will help clients access the 80% of job vacancies that are hidden. This figure is a nonsense. How do they get to 80%? By claiming jobs advertised with recruitment agencies are "hidden". I defy anyone to find 1 other career or recruitment professional who would agree with that. The real figure is more like half that.

A lot of their clients sign up because they are offered 6 mths support by a Campaign Manager who they say will work with them to uncover these "hidden" jobs.

How many campaign managers are there? Two. To cover the whole country and all their clients. So do not expect some caring personal service, you'll be lucky if they remember your name when (if) they actually call you when they are meant to.

They hide behind their ISO 9001 accreditation but it's a fig leaf, it's the tail that wags the dog. It's not about what's right for the client it's always "our ISO accreditation means it must be done this way every time". The 2 are not always mutually compatible.

How do i know this? After nearly using their "service" i discovered someone i knew used to work for them (before soon realsing they were dodgy) so she gave me the insider view.

How trading standards havent come down on them yet is a mystery. Avoid these people, save your money.

These people trawl the web looking for people who may have recently left a role. My call came only a week after being made redundant. Feeling vulnerable I went along to the 2 free sessions they give you. They sold me a story about the fact that 75% of roles are never advertised and that they could help me through their network to tap in to this unseen market. At that point they ask for £3k! You get 6 sessions which focus on career goals and they do help reconstruct your cv, give advice on hook letters for prospecting and interview tips. All quite useful, although my revised CV came back with typos and when I testes it against my own version, mine won hands down in terms of interview ratios. At that point you get the marketing relaunch as they call it. An account manager is supposed to start helping with the search. BUT trust me there is no hep with any unadvertised jobs market. All that happens is they send your new CV around to all the usual suspect recruiters whom you are almost certainly already registered with. This only serves to cause confusion as you get a call from said recruiter asking why someone they have never heard of has sent in a different version of your CV. Your weekly calls with your account manager will be an embarrassment as they make blindingly obvious suggestions and flounder around to try and give the call some veneer of structure.
You will do better to trust yourself engage friends and try to work your own network something they advise strongly post you giving them £3k as they dont have one. when I complained they gave me 3 unqualified leads for there very small uninteresting companies in my area - none of whom were remotely interested in speaking to me. SO i warn you all DONT DO IT save your redundancy and spend it on some retraining. These people WILL NOT introduce you to anyone interesting which was the hook I believed in and got caught on. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I used one of their Southern offices, not the Leeds HQ
After complaining that they were not delivering what the salesman had promised and trying to get some redress with no joy and then recover what I had paid via credit card which proved difficult. Barclaycard said they had had a number of similar complaints but the contracts you sign were now very cleverly worded. I had to accept a partial repayment of what I had paid and sign a non disclosure agreement to gag me.
Ask them how many others have had refunds and signed similar agreements. More eveidnece of others sufferign the same came out when I asked around. Look at the history on the web!!
They used to be known as PCS. Check out the web !!!
They changed their name to Apollo to get away from all the negative reviews
The same people are in the same Regus Offices with the same head office in Leeds.
Now they have changed their name to HTCE
Their staff on linked in have removed all reference to their previous time at Apollo and or PCS Why would they do that if all OK?.
As a client when I was referred to a recruiter by them, the Recruiter said you are not relevant to what I cover Why have they referred you to me? Why have you paid them money? look at all the trust pilot feedback ask why they have changed names.
Would you keep changing name if you had a good reputation?
They are well known by the job boards who they get the CV details adn then try and sell a job hunting service
They also created a fake job board called exec 2 exec to get CVs to sell their services to Look up the ASA Advertising Standards Authority findings on that part of what they do. Do not pay them up front CAUTION STOP LOOK ELSEWHERE

Odd out of the blue email, asking me to meet their senior consultant in Manchester, but from someone else not even the senior consultant! But no introductory info or detail as to how they had found me or what their market specialities are, nor how my particular "xyz" skills are just what they need. I can write better speculative approaches myself! Email didn't seem quite right, so called and got the seem feeling. All a bit vague as to what job market sector(s) they were in. When I said I needed something more targeted, they said "oh okay then", but didn't sound very surprised. So said thanks and hung up. Email rules updated...

contact you as a recruitment company but they actually rant. they want you to pay to basically 'look' at your cv and give some advice. what a waste of time!

Similar to other posts. Unsolicited email, supposedly on the back of a CV. They refused to acknowledge where they had seen or obtained my CV from. Alarm bells when arranging the meeting they requested a copy of my CV! Online research red-flagged the organisation more. Rang the organisation and put them on the spot regarding selling. Yes 3 hours free and then a charge of £3,000 for providing recruitment mentor support!

In my personal opinion they were unprofessional and I felt deceived. I would not recommend.

They bring people in after they see roles posted online pretending to be a standard agency with roles and once you get there they have no jobs to speak with you about, aren't interested in your details they asked you to bring. They give you some spiel about the fact that they operate differently and this comes at a cost of thousands of pounds charged to the candidate. Why don't they tell you that before they waste your time? Because no one would bother going. Do yourself a favour and avoid!!!!

I get contacted by these people every couple of years with the same story.

Obviously the misleading emails are a red flag, but dig a little deeper and it is clear this company are not telling the whole story at all. To start with, apart from what you learn on here reading other reviews, taking a look at their website and they really tell you nothing about what they actually do. In fact, they not only have almost no content on their site, but what they do have repeats itself on multiple pages.

They have almost 400 customer reviews on their website (which you cannot read other than the first five words) and almost ALL are 5 stars yet on here, 90% are one star. So, how might that be?

They claim ISO-9001 accreditation yet I can find no record of them on any registers for such accreditation (not that it means much anyway). No doubt this claim must be put into question.

I hope this helps others to avoid wasting any time or being taken in by them.

Let me start by saying I did not use the services of Apollo Transitions. I was contacted out of the blue by a Sam Wright saying that a Senior Consultant wished to discuss my career transition. As the offices covered my region I requested a meeting at the time they had offered. There initially was no reply so I rang and was then set up with an appointment which was less convenient time and outside of the window of my declared availability. I know that my email had been received as it was referred to in the telephone conversation. Something started to alert me that this was not all it seemed.

Prior to the meeting I thought I'd prepare by reading up on the company and the Senior Consultant I was to meet. Reviews on Apollo Transitions own site were, as expected, 5 star. I looked on independent review sites including trust pilot and this is where the review scores dropped considerably and I discovered for the first time this would be a service I would have to pay for. I contacted Apollo asking the question on whether there was a fee and if so how much. After some prompting I was told the initial meeting was free, then there was upto 2 hours of 'free' work carried out. Beyond that the fees started at £2500 but were payable by instalments.

I have never known a Recruitment Agency / Talent Agency / Head Hunter charge the individual. Others I use get their money from the potential employer or on placement of an individual through a finders fee, normally related to a percentage of the individuals pay, again paid by the employer. I consequently cancelled my appointment.

At the end of the day I cannot comment on whether the service offered is worth the £2500+ fee. All I can say is I'm not willing to part with that money up front with no guarantee of getting a job. If they were that confident of placing you then the fee would be on placement.

I have to agree with what S.Carter has written. I believe they are exploiting people who are genuinely looking for employment, with widely exaggerated claims of 'we do not look for a suitable role, we create one for you'. I can only claim to have experienced the Regus House, East Midlands setup. Alarm bells rang when I requested the cost implications for me to proceed further in their process, as they would not give a figure for some reason !!
Thank goodness for TrustPilot, as other people had alerted to the fact you could be parting with approx. £3000 for what....dreams.

DO NOT SPEND 1 SECOND of your TIME SPEAKING TO THESE GUYS

They are not what they say they are, this is NOT an Executive Search Company, but rather a bogus career management consultancy who are looking to sell you their services for the minimum price of "£3000". They trick you into thinking that they are an Executive Search Firm for Senior Management- when speaking to them on the phone, they advised that there were potentially quite a few jobs that would suit my background, thus wanting to set up the meeting ASAP. I did not even need to send a CV or to bring one along......

However when asked - they could not advise where they got my details from - (Hello LinkedIn) said something about - Jobsites, MY CV HAS NOT BEEN ON A JOBSITE IN YEARS.

I am so glad that i did my research before spending time and money to go and see these tricksters....... DO NOT SPEND 1 MINUTE OF YOUR TIME on this rubbish!!!

1) They fish the web looking for people in search of new career opportunity
2) The send you a general email where they try to set up a meeting with one of their senior directors
3) At the meeting, the Senior Director can be good, but essentially it is a sales pitch of their mentoring services
4) They drop the bomb ... £ 3,000 to access their services

Not real job offers, not real connections in the industry you want to work ...