Hays Reviews 

I was brutally ghosted by Hays after a series of interviews and assessments for a client of theirs. The whole process took well over a month, quite a lot of preparation and I didn't get as much as a generic e-mail from them. I learnt from LinkedIn that the role had been given internally. Rude, disrespectful and unprofessional. Stay away.

I have been on the 'books' with Hays Recruitment for some time and I can honestly say, that poor does not even begin to cover the experience.
For a long time, they were unable to find any suitable positions for me and therefore, I moved in a different direction. When I again contacted them, asking about part-time, or contract work, they were 'excited' to help, but provided nothing.
Over the past 18 months, I have received marketing emails from them, covering all manner of positions, in all sorts of industries, at all levels of experience. This is despite telling them what I do, in what industry, and at what level.
When I called to speak to one of the recuiters, whose details were on the bottom of her email, she did not know what I was talking about, as the emails are sent out basically as a mailshot.
I was then told that it was my fault for not updating my details. I took that on the chin and updated my details - no change and ironically, an even larger variety of positions and industries.
Eventually about a month ago, I had enough and contacted one of the agents asking for an explanation. Again one of the main reasons that this was continuing, was that it essentially was my fault, even though I had updated my records with the last person I spoke to.
I was told that all of my details would be removed from the system immediately and I would receive no further emails. That lasted about a week.
I have today called them again and asked to make a formal complaint, in relation to the information being issued, as well as the unsolicited emails I am still receiving. There were no records of calls to previous people. This is an information company!!!!
My information has now apparently been removed, as well as anything that was ever relevant to me, so there is not record of me at all.
How very convenient . . .

Poor service. You are treated as a number. They are not interested in you.

I would give no stars if that was possible.

They have a few issues

One is the amount they contact you for either perm/contract work with 0 follow ups even if you call in after the people

I've found the few times I applied for a role and it was being handled by hays they waste your time with all these pre interviews they do internally which also have weeks in between follow ups and I've only ever have them give me feedback for one interview process with a client which I declined in favour for a contract that wouldn't rip me off as much in how much I'd lose out my daily rate

All in all doesn't matter where in the UK the client they are hiring for is it's usually a pretty bad experience the date for experience is a tad tricky as it's been between 2020 and 2024 so far and they still keep sending me an email a few times a week about up to date cv's so God knows how bad things are internally if they never have the right CV on file they also submitted the wrong CV to 2 interviews which was a tad awkward to have to pause the interview and then send them over my cv during

Have been contracting for more than 10 years, and a good part of my contracts were through Hays. Great Team, never had any issues. Highly professional, respectful and straightforward, and always got great feedback and help with my application. Thank You James Fewtrell, was a pleasure speaking with You!

I spoke to a consultant based in Guildford for a role based in Surrey. I told them that I was made redundant and that my last salary was higher than the higher salary bracket for the role.
They even admitted that the salary was lower compared to other sectors when I said I would only consider the higher bracket of the role, as it was 4/5 days a week and I would be taking a salary cut.
The consultant had the nerve to lowball me to around 10k less, as the client wouldn't accept me being put forward for the highest salary bracket.
All in all, it was a completely awful experience. I won't be applying through them again. Use other agencies that won't treat you as a commodity.

Went for a meeting with a consultant Niall Swords. I was asked to then send further information about my CV day of the meeting which I did. I then had absolutely 0 contact for over a month to my email despite sending two follow-ups to Niall. After finally getting a response I was promised that I would get a call every 2 weeks. Another month later and 2 follow-up emails I received 0 communication until I put in a complaint and the team leader called me. He then said that there isn't enough time to call clients and that he MIGHT be able to have a follow-up meeting in 4 weeks. Shocking service. Would not recommend anyone to use Hays.

I secured a position through Hays at one of their clients and the experience thus far has not been so great. My recruiter is constantly asking me to do things like signing this and that document, issues with references, sign this and that again all of which are 3 months into my job. I mean get a grip and stop haranguing me when I have already started the job! Yes, thank you for finding the role for me, but if you're going to be pestering me it starts to become unbearable and a real nuisance for me. Not only that, I have had issues with my pay as in my contract stated that I would be paid such and such per hour when in fact I was being paid less! I found that discrepancy. I went ahead because I always got the impression that Hays was the best agency in the UK, but I have had better experiences with agencies with windows half full ffs.

I'm never going to use this company again! Fake job listings getting a kick from turning down decent professionals! You can just tell by their overall ratings they are a useless bunch!

Awful company they seem to like stressing people out and not paying them and then going back on their words. I can't believe this sub par level of business still exists. I urge caution to anyone considering Hays as an employer.
You also get taxed twice on holiday pay.

I can only speak on behalf of my experience with Hays finance in Swansea. A real conveyer belt treatment, especially from Jackie Taylor. I understand she has been recruiting for a long time and it really shows! Very blunt and confrontational. She spoke very harshly about some of her largest clients which I found quite bizarre – her ego was out of control. Little advice or guidance on how to progress with my career, which is indicative of this organisation. Avoid.

The S**t agency.
They didn't pay me.

Applied for one of their Prison support vacancies. Jumped through hoops doing the vetting required. 4vweeks now since the vetting was finished and still no offer of a start date. Complete waste of time.

Haha is the worst recruitment agency that is around I had a job with them for a company in Lympne so had to relocate to the area for the job however I worked with the company the agency put me with for 3 weeks and then got my contract terminated via a text message by my agent called James telling me not to go to work as they terminated my contract with no warning what so ever. The company also don’t pay when they say they are going to pay you will be waiting weeks for you pay and then still not get the right amount so overall never go with Hays

Hays placed me at my first role when I moved to the uk 10 years ago. I worked with a great individual but since he left the agency has gone into a decline. The recruiters hired are abysmal. In the span of 3 months I spoke to 3 different individuals, all with whom I had poor experiences with. They don't respond back to emails, return calls and make up horrible excuses when confronted. Don't waste ur time with Hays.

Bad experience, worked with one of their clients for 6 month and was treated very poorly then when i terminated this job hays sided with the client despite previously knowing how things were

The website was faulty and did’t let me apply for a role despite the CV format and size being correct. Customer Service were courteous but useless. Radio silence from their IT Department. The relevant specialist consultant was unresponsive to phone calls, emails and even to her own colleagues who passed my messages onto her. Impossible to raise a complaint as they don’t provide an email address for their branch offices (which should be contacted as Step 1 of their complaint process) and, as I said, CS play stupid when you ask for one.

Spoke to them about temporary employment, always had to chase them and no response even when asked someone to give me a call back. Then dealt with someone called David based in London that I was no longer able to continue with a job application due to long commute times, he was quite rude about it, tone changed very quickly as opposed to when he thought he would make money from me taking the job. Wouldn’t recommend.

Was recently sent a request for a reference as part of their reference checking service. This automated email request very impolitely demanded that I supply a reference via their web portal within 24 hours (this was sent on a Friday afternoon) or else they would reject the person who was using myself as a reference. The portal itself was badly designed and unclear e.g the initial questions have a large text box under them asking for more information which has an unspecified character limit you hit after a couple of lines. (turns out that isn't where they want the reference to be submitted this was instead cut-off at the bottom of the page). If this is how they treat people providing references I dread to think how they treat their clients.

They are like bloodhounds - kinder, friendlier and more integrity would be a good start. I felt violated after dealings with them.

Trust your instincts if they get in touch with you - stand firm!

Strung me along thinking they could get me a job, sent me an email asking me if I could send my CV directly so they could search for roles to employ me under, following this I got a call and they claimed they found me a role and that I was a good candidate. Made me attend a 30 minute teams interview with a woman named Atibhee and wasted my time dangling a position in front of me, and promised they’d send me an email following the call which they never did. I emailed shortly after asking for follow up and was ignored, then I emailed the next day stating I never got any follow up communications and was ignored. They made me wait the whole weekend so I could get back in touch, I emailed again but decided to follow up with a call to their main number. I couldn't even get through at 1 pm on a week day suddenly, this makes me think my number was blocked?? For no reason? Massive waste of time, if you get contacted by someone named Atibhee don’t let them waste your time. Just checked and Atibhee has send me some generic spam email not relating to any of my attempts to reach out. AVOID!!