Apollo 

As a contractor, I have dealt with a number of different recruitment agencies over the years. Some try hard. A large number have NO idea what you do and therefore no empathy or understanding of the roles that would suit your experience and knowledge.

There are also a number of shady firms and so called recruitment people out there. I would put Apollo in that category.

A perfunctory email out of the blue (2 lines from Sam Wright) asking me to meet a senior consultant in January. If he wants to meet, at least have the courtesy and professionalism of having a discussion first!!

Needless to say, I won’t be turning up for any sham interview, nor will I be seeking any career advice from someone who has no idea what I do or who I am. Cowboys!

I received an email totally out of the blue from a Sam Wright stating he was from this company asking me if I was available to meet his senior partner the next day in relation to assisting me secure a new position.
I am not actively looking for a new job nor have I ever heard of this company before let alone been in contact with them.
I replied to Sam asking him where Apollo obtained my details from and received no reply until just now when I had a voicemail from his colleague Ben, asking me to call them back.
This all came 2 days after my Linkedin Account had some dubious activity - all seems very coincidental!

I have asked them to remove me from their list and would urge anyone else to do the same.

I signed up with Apollo back in March 2017. The consultancy element was pretty good. However , one of the main reasons I signed up was that I was told I would get a campaign manager who would contact you weekly and push your campaign to ensure you were on track and assist you with your job search. The reality is that the campaign management part is very poor. I had to chase them on quite a few occasions for the weekly calls to take place and didn't feel they really did anything proatively. Considering the amount of money I paid I couldn't recommend them as the campaign management was so poor.

Beware - NOT recruitment agents.

Having had a call from these guys to invite me to a meeting in connection with my hunt for a job. The call intimated it was from a recruitment agency, and that they would help me secure my next role - albeit that they did not mention that it was in connection with any particular job role.
I duly cancelled existing appointments to accommodate this meeting the next day.

The fact that the caller could not confirm where his recruiter found my details concerned me though, so I then Googled 'Apollo Recruitment Reviews' and came across the feedback on Trust Pilot.

If I had wasted my time on travelling 40 miles to attend a sales pitch on career mentoring, I would have really lost it at the meeting. Thankfully, I can channel my frustration into this review, and hopefully save other people wasting their time.

If I had wanted a career mentoring service, I would have assessed the marketplace for this service, and made a selection of my own choice. The caller did not mention at all that this was a 'paid for' service, and I find that this method of drumming up trade is not professional, and can only assume it will reflect in any future service they potentially offer.

I have recently been contacted by these people again. They should have on file that I rumbled them the first time.
They pose as a recruitment consultant - they are not.
They dangled a potential opportunity they were working on. When I kept returning to push them on this there was no substance.
They start like its a standard interview, and then gradually move to mentoring you.
Then they drop the bombshell that they want a fee to effectively mentor you to help you find your own job saying they know how to help you network and find hidden jobs that do not exist.

Having found myself unsure where to take my next career step I started to get extremely frustrated in the job market. Having met with Apollo they explained how their career advise service may be able to assist me. After two initial meetings (and a few months to make a decision) I decided to purchase one of their programmes. I met with a consultant who helped me identify my next career goal, followed by a series of meetings to help prepare me for the job market. I was then handed over to a team at Apollo's head office. My contact there called me regularly and gave me some very useful advise and guidance. I knew when signing up it was a risk but I certianly feel the support was value for money - especially when I look at the fee I was charged against the number of hours contact time (face to face and over the phone).

Be very aware that this firm trawl recruitment sites and target recently retired military and police and those who have been made redundant, knowing they may be willing to invest to potentially start a new career. They call to say a senior consultant has spotted your CV, meet you in a plush room (that they rent for a short time only), start as if it's an interview and then explain how you need coaching and assistance with your CV, interview techniques and LinkedIn profile advice. This service costs 2 payments of £1500, one immediately. The initial pitch is like a recruitment/consultancy firm and they have no links to jobs. Please be very wary!

Following a family bereavement and a long break from work, I felt I needed some support in finding my next job.

And purely by chance I was contacted by Apollo Transitions at that time.
So I agreed to meet them.

I met a Director of Apollo Transitions at their office near East Midlands airport who gave an encouraging view of how Apollo – through their extensive network of employers and recruiters – could assist me.

He told me how Apollo would help me gain a better understanding of what I wanted and, more importantly, introduce me to the ‘unadvertised job market’.
There was of course a catch; a price tag.
I wasn’t quite ready to commit, as there were still family issues.
But a few weeks later I decided to meet the same Director again when he convinced me that he would help me, through Apollo's network, access the 'hidden job market' and find that all elusive job and I signed up.

I had a series of meetings in which I met a Senior Consultant who was okay so I won’t mention his name.
He asked all the right questions to help me understand what I wanted and helped me write a shorter and perhaps more effective CV than I had before.

From here it fell apart.

I was provided with a ‘Campaign Manager’; Operations Director, Apollo Transitions.

Over the course of two months the Operations Director provided a number of names and email addresses he had sent my CV to.
He could not provide direct or mobile numbers, just generic office numbers where I was generally vetted and fobbed off without being able to speak directly with the named introduction.

I truly believed that given the Director's personal commitment to me these would be solid introductions; personal networked contacts of Apollo Transitions.

How wrong I was!

Of the several contacts I was provided, I had the following responses:

‘I received the attached emails from Apollo recently but have no idea who they are and what they do.’.

‘xxxxxx's email (the Operations Director's) introducing you to me says he took my name of our website. I haven’t heard of Apollo’

‘Your message xxxxxx.xxxx(at)xxx.com couldn't be delivered.’

‘I have added your CV to our database / community so you will be informed if we have any suitable programme level roles.’

‘I no longer work for Xxxx & Xxxx, please direct all recruitment enquiries to the UK Recruitment Team’

And so on …. not one true 'real' introduction.

I will stress that my commitment to Apollo Transitions was based purely and solely on what I believed to be an equally sincere commitment by their Director to work with Apollo Transitions’ network of employers and recruiters; there would be little value in paying for their services without this. This was his unique selling point to me.

I was becoming increasing concerned and agitated.
I had paid good money for introductions to solid networked contacts and access to the unadvertised job market and had received absolutely nothing.

All my so-called Campaign Manager (Operations Director) was doing was trawling job sites for the names of recruitment agencies and an email address.

I was not introduced to a single person who knew the Operations Director let alone Apollo Transitions.

I am perhaps more annoyed with myself for being so trusting of their Director in my initial two meetings; his words have proven hollow and (by my interpretation of the word) quite fraudulent.

I hope this helps.

Apollo provide professional knowledge expertise vision and guidance through out the consultation process .Easily accessible literature and resource on line and through structured one to one coaching.
I now have a clear picture of my future career path , the knowledge and confidence to successfully achieve ; but most importantly Apollo have given me valuable skill's to recognise business worth and personal potential.
Delighted at the results , having been offered a more challenging and financially rewarding position.

I would Highly recommend