Has anyone had experience working with La Creme?

icywind1980

Ann, I can understand your position on confidentiality, but I do not think that you should be listed as a representative of your company on boards.ie, if you cannot viably represent your company.

ABajaninCork

Ann: You've missed the moment. Went to forward the mail I sent to the Cork office, and rapidly got bored...

If it's taken the best part of three weeks to even post a reply on Boards.ie, then please tell me why I should run up my phone bill trying to get through to you?

snooper

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Ann: You've missed the moment. Went to forward the mail I sent to the Cork office, and rapidly got bored...

If it's taken the best part of three weeks to even post a reply on Boards.ie, then please tell me why I should run up my phone bill trying to get through to you?

Right so you'd prefer to just moan anonomously, sorta defeats the purpose of complaining about there lack of response (which was pretty crap to be fair).

Ann if you really were concerned you would have taken accountability for this and given YOUR email address not some generic one.

Should people complain at group level?

mrgardener

Just been reading this post and am not surprised by La Cremes unwillingness to discuss or even defend their behaviour. My experience with them was disgraceful, posting jobs that don't exist just to "harvest" CV's.

I know some people might come on to defend their position, but after hearing what the industry is like from someone who worked in it, its near enough a complete sham!

The sooner this industry dies out (which I believe is happening, regardless of what they tell you), or gets regulated properly with honest, upfront people, the better.

ABajaninCork

snooper wrote: »

Right so you'd prefer to just moan anonomously, sorta defeats the purpose of complaining about there lack of response (which was pretty crap to be fair).

Actually, there was NOTHING anonymous about my complaint. I should tell you at this point, I am well known to the good people in the Cork office having complained about the self-same thing before. And I got no answer from them then nor now. Have a look at my previous post. I sent them a mail as requested. That was three weeks ago. Ann only roused herself to answer on Tuesday, hence my last post.

I have a sneaking feeling the e-mail WAS seen by the Cork office, they recognised the name, but didn't bother to pass it on as they failed to see the 'significance' of it, even though I told them exactly why I had mailed.:cool:

La Creme didn't give a **** then. They certainly don't give a **** now.

That's my honest opinion.

snooper

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Actually, there was NOTHING anonymous about my complaint. I should tell you at this point, I am well known to the good people in the Cork office having complained about the self-same thing before. And I got no answer from them then nor now. Have a look at my previous post. I sent them a mail as requested. That was three weeks ago. Ann only roused herself to answer on Tuesday, hence my last post.

I have a sneaking feeling the e-mail WAS seen by the Cork office, they recognised the name, but didn't bother to pass it on as they failed to see the 'significance' of it, even though I told them exactly why I had mailed.:cool:

La Creme didn't give a **** then. They certainly don't give a **** now.

That's my honest opinion.

Fair enough AB - missed that bit!

Irrespective of your plight with them they've screwed up what was meant to be a possitive PR spin

ABajaninCork

Totally agree Snooper.

It's such a shame, as both IcyWind & I were willing to give them a shot at responding/defending their stance. I even gave them props for fixing the website!

icywind1980

This is becoming such a self-made disaster for them. *shaking head*

Eoin

La Creme: Ann wrote: »

which we have asked for by email to: dublin@lacreme.ie or cork@lacreme.ie. We will contact you once we have your telephone number to resolve your issue.

Ann, you're giving the same contact details that anyone can find on your website.

Given the amount of unhappy people here, I think you should consider taking the initiative and you contacting each disgruntled person on this thread, giving your direct email address and contact number and guaranteeing that you personally will do your best to get to the bottom of their issues.

To be honest, your posts are just like answering machine messages - there is no interaction going on here.

(mod hat is off for this post btw, just a suggestion)

ABajaninCork

I totally agree with you Eoin. Several times Ann was asked to specifically comment to IcyWind. She didn't bother. Just repeated the mantra of e-mailing her Dublin or Cork offices.

La Creme are never going to answer or deal with any issues we might have.

It's typical of the arrogant and high-handed behaviour displayed by recruitment agencies. They don't see the 'bigger picture' as they are only interested in getting paid. That's fair enough, but don't trample on the people 'below' you. I was always taught to be nice to people and treat them fairly. You never know when you'll need their help. They try to insult my intelligence which I won't stand for. And they don't like it. Which is probably why I don't get too far with recruitment agencies.

I worked in Sales for over twenty years, so I know all the moves. I could probably teach THEM a few things!:D

I'll leave it there...

tricky D

Wow, this thread is a brilliant example of how to screw up PR. Must bookmark it as a case study.

One of the complaints on this thread is about La Creme not getting back in touch. La Creme's proposed solution is to say get in touch and we'll sort it out. What do they then do? Not get in touch.

Then La Creme send 'a representative on to answer any questions or clarify any issues there may be. Ann will only be dealing with La Créme related issues.' What do they do? Don't answer questions or clarify issues.

They also come to a public forum to do this, then insist on doing it privately. Basic concepts of Public Relations seem to be lacking.

So what have they achieved? They've raised the expectations that they are really interested in upping their game, then spectacularly lower it.

You couldn't make this up and all the while this thread will creep up the Google rankings the more times La Creme gets mentioned.

aleybert

Glad I spotted this thread. Doing up my CV to apply a job that LaCreme has, but after reading this I'll send it to another agency that has the same job. I have great experience for this job so I'm feeling confident!

aine92

I recently sent my CV into La Creme and needless to say, I haven't even heard back from them and I must have sent it two weeks ago. After hearing all this, I definitely won't be looking to be on their books under any circumstances and I will not be recommending their crap service to anybody. Why bother dealing with such crap service when theres others out there who are so much more efficient.

Good job Ann-great reflection of La Creme. Clearly not La Creme de la Creme, are ye :rolleyes:

IzzyWizzy

So why are you here, Ann, if you can't do anything but tell people to e-mail you? PR fail or what! You actually managed to make the situation even worse. Amazing stuff.

mrgardener

This pretty much sums up the recruitment industry imo.
People chancing their arm at trying to make money by calling themselves a recruitment company.
I've always thought that if people like that LaCreme woman went to a respectable recruitment company, she would be shown the door..........

Darragh

Hey all

After some thinking about this, I'm closing this thread as it is.

When La Creme came to us about this thread, my first instinct was (and always will be) that a conversation on thread happens openly and transparently.

I'm well aware that sometimes people use websites like Boards.ie to damage companies reputation with anonymous posts specifically designed to cause trouble. We are working hard to get rid of these kinds of posts.

This is NOT one of them - an established member chose to share her experience with others on the forum. Boards.ie is a platform for discussion and we welcome honest posts here.

We also believe that companies should have a right to reply if there are issues that come up that need a response. That is why we introduced Verified representatives and our Talk to... forums where companies like ESB, Eircom, Vodafone and more are answering questions and engaging honestly.

We are aware that there are confidentiality issues and that not every company can engage as openly and as transparently as might suit us, especially if they don't have people's names and addresses, but we also believe there is a happy medium to be reached here and that if a company is prepared to engage and committed to, with appropriate resource, they should do so.

While I was happy for La Creme to engage (on my advice) on this thread, I personally don't believe that it should have taken them so long to respond in the way they did. This is a personal opinion.

Admittedly they may not be familiar with this style of communication - not many companies are - but given the amount of emails that have gone on behind the scenes too between the PR department and myself, I personally am sorry that it has turned out as you can read it above when so much more could have been done. I had advised La Creme on several options. I realise though that this is a very new thing for some companies, which many cannot do yet.

I am removing the "Verified representative" status of the La Creme account since it won't be used, but hope this post serves to show that Ann was from that company.

However I am also aware that La Creme do have a good reputation from people who have got jobs from them and hired with them, so I'd urge you to bear in mind that this thread is only the experiences of SOME people. As they've said, the best way to talk to them is to email or call them. This thread should only reflect on their interaction on this thread and not on their employees or work practises. Let your own experience guide you on this.

If there's anything I can clarify for you, contact me on hello@boards.ie.

Thanks

Darragh