Terrible experience
Be very careful about accepting an employment offer with Optima Partners. They are a consultancy company who recruit & place people within organisations – I am a data analyst contractor who was forced to resign after only 4 days due to a terrible experience.
I was offered a contract role with OP and was placed within a major pension / insurance company. After I accepted the offer, I was told I would start within ONE week. However, it took EIGHT weeks. This was due to a lack of knowledge about the clients requirements and a shambolic prescreening process.
In that time I turned down other opportunities. HUGE mistake! When I finally started, I realise very quickly that OP were a disorganised shambles with poor line managers who take no responsibility for their actions and blame everything on the new guy.
I was remote based. For the first 3 days, I had no access to the pension companies systems. This severely restricted my ability to work. My line manager barely communicated with me. I was given little indication as to what I should be doing. I met a few people and completed some training videos. Little else I could do.
On the afternoon of the 3rd day, I received a phone call from my new line manager. She DEMANDED that I tell her what I had been doing since I joined. For every single day! Then I received a lecture about not being proactive enough! Pot calling the kettle eh? Rather than take any responsibility for her lack of management, she decided to attack me. By this time I felt demoralised, unfairly criticised and wondering how I could even work with her for months on end.
But that wasn’t all. The next day, she told me I wasn’t getting paid! It wasn’t her decision to make but she decided to say it anyway. I resigned immediately as I wasn’t working with a bully. I told Optima Partners that I was considering legal action and they finally agreed to pay. Only after I mentioned legal
Who are Optima Partners? I see them as a 5th wheel. I have been a contractor for many years and I normally deal with a recruitment co who place me within an organisation. Simple and effective. OP wedge themselves between the recruitment co & the client and create an extra level of complication & expense for the end client.
I didn’t even realise that OP had an HR dept. After speaking with them, they accepted that I had been bullied, micromanaged, unfairly criticised and demoralised off the job. But they didn’t offer me the role back!
My advice? Avoid this bunch like the plague! Work with a recruitment co who deals directly with clients! Save yourself a huge amount of stress.