Excellent Career Entry vs. Awful Treatment, You Decide
Pros
- You get placed with high profile clients - No experience needed - A few travel oppertunities
Cons
- I had to train for 4+ months unpaid when I had very little to live on already due FDM placing me with a client that didn't want me to start for another 2 months - FDM really try their best when you first join them, they appear strict but fair. How wrong I was. The second I was placed that was it, most communications with FDM were strenuous at best. They frequently re-requested previously provided information and threatened action if not provided within their deadline. The most interesting one was when I got an email at 5:30 on a Friday requesting education certificates etc. for the Monday morning otherwise I will receive a disciplinary (because they needed it for audit purposes even after I had provided these on a number of occasions before). In short they are your best friend when they need you for interviews but after that expect rudeness and aggression - Money makes FDM's world go around. You can work as hard as you want but don't expect that to matter with FDM...dedication, hard work, going above and beyond requirements etc. doesn't matter in the first two years as you are tied into the contract but I certainly expected it to make a difference when it came to negotiating pay for the third year. Wrong again. I will put my favorite FDM quote below when trying to justify why they should make me a good offer: Me: I feel I work exceptionally hard and should be rewarded as such FDM employee: do you feel like you try and over-achieve? Me: I guess you could describe it as that FDM Employee: why should you get paid more because you are an over-achiever??? - Since joining FDM they have really stripped back what was already a bad benefits package. Due to the breakdown in pay (a basic wage and a bonus for each hour on a client site) you are only entitled to holiday and pension etc on the basic salary. They have changed the sick pay policy to be the legal bare minimum until you have been there for over two years (you used to be entitled after a year) - On training completion you get "signed-off" and then you start getting paid. As to be expected they resist as much as possible with the sign off process, I honestly don't know anyone who was signed off before being placed for that reason. One guy I trained with had been there for 9 months - unpaid. - The "training" was all self-taught with the trainers having to support too many "Mounties" to offer in depth help and support - A good number of the trainers were high performing trainees so don't have any real world experience
