When I started in June 2014, my hiring manager (Mark Bernecker) told me we were the only Randstad branch in the entire city. Three months into it, however, I discovered that there were multiple branches of Randstad's General Staffing division all over this market. What's worse is that we were stepping all over each other! Our separate divisions worked as entirely separate companies, each one not knowing what the other was doing. We did not share databases, so we were constantly calling on the same candidates and the same companies. It was confusing to us, confusing to our candidates, and confusing to our clients.
After making this discovery, I reported it to my management team (Mark Bernecker and Macon Albertson). They got together with the management team of Randstad General Staffing and in Jan 2015 we were all sent to a hotel for the day (the Randstad Professionals division and Randstad General Staffing division) to have a meeting to separate our divisions. By the end of the meeting it was clear that the Randstad Professionals division (my division) was given an unfavorable set of rules to operate by. In a nutshell, because Randstad General Staffing had been in the market for over 30 years, they were given the ability to work on all transactional Finance and Accounting jobs, while Randstad Professionals division was only able to work on Staff Accountant level positions on up to CFO level positions. This is fine if we were Direct Placement professionals (PERM) only, but they also wanted us to build a Temp team. Anyone who has had any experience in temp staffing knows that the VOLUME of temp positions within Finance and Accounting are going to be at the transactional level. In addition, the Nashville branch was the ONLY Professionals branch in the entire country operating this way. I knew right away that the management team had set us up to fail with this new set of rules. As an employee of one of the largest Staffing and Recruiting companies, I felt very disrespected as a professional with talent and experience. The entire Randstad organization is very unorganized since their merger with The Mergis Group. If you are considering working for the Randstad Professionals branch in Nashville, consider this a warning. Be sure to negotiate a year-long "guarantee" period if you are wanting to do Direct Placement. You will need a LOT of ramp up time in order to start a branch from scratch in this market, and to overcome a lot of burnt bridges that took place with candidates and clients due to the company's disorganization and oversight.