Some people are apparently still putting $199 on their credit cards to become “contract associate recruiters” for HRP Hospital Recruiting Partners in Plaistow, New Hamsphire.
And those same people, who haven’t been doing any due diligence, are telling us they aren’t getting what they paid for. We have in fact been hearing this since August when we ran our first story about this company and their practices.
For those of you who haven’t noticed, our commenters are not happy. They are mostly lamenting the fact that they signed up during “a weak moment.” They’re saying things like:
- “Yes, I’m still kicking myself for getting suckered in the first place! I’m usually more wary and careful!”
- “I hope these people get shut down for what they’re doing to desperate people searching for a legitimate job.”
- “Be smart job seekers. Do your homework after you are contacted by a company, I know I will.”
- “If enough people complain, maybe they’ll be shut down and we can save others the grief we’re going through. I’m still kicking myself for getting caught up in this even at a weak moment.”
- “Watched the webinar this morning. What a waste of an hour. I thought about it later I wonder how many prison tattoos the guy who ran the webinar has?”
Here’s a little recap.
HRP Staffing claims to be a staffing firm for healthcare professionals. But most of the online activity around the company, and most of our reader’s comments, are focused on the company’s efforts to recruit for recruiters. And they charge a fee for that.
Specifically, in order to “get the job” of being a contract associate recruiter for HRP, so you can get access to proprietary “PhD-level healthcare recruiting training materials” as well as HRP’s “exclusive projects,” you have to pay a “small administrative fee.”
The part of a webinar for potential recruiters that I watched included a company representative saying the fee was something they had to charge because “competing companies were stealing proprietary material.”
C’mon people, think about that for a moment! Charging a fee for some materials doesn’t prevent the competition from being a buyer.
It also didn’t prevent plenty people from buying also. And as our comments section indicates, when several of them had “buyer’s remorse” immediately after, or felt they were being scammed in their words, every one of them found it impossible to get their money back.
“Watched the webinar this morning. What a waste of an hour. I thought about it later I wonder how many prison tattoos the guy who ran the webinar has?” – commenter, Jason
Richard Twight, who says he is “Supervisor over Operations, Systems, and Support for HRP Staffing,” (who has ever heard of a title of being supervisor over something or someone as opposed to being a supervisor of someone or something?) also chimed in on the refund thing and other issues in the Staffing Talk comment’s section.
“We have a No Refund Policy, due to the simple the fact that once one becomes a Partner Recruiter, they immediately obtain our Educational Material, Intellectual Property, Privileged Business Clients, Copyright Forms, Copyright Manual, etc.”
Why the heck would potential recruiters need a Copyright Form and a Copyright Manual? Unless of course Twight meant copyrighted forms and a copyrighted manual. A not so subtly nuanced difference there.
And as long as we are nitpicking about the words and the grammar, let’s continue with that theme for a moment.
In Richard’s comment he is all over the place for example when it comes to capitalizing certain words, as in the following sentence.
“HRP is a New England based Corporation that focuses on Training, Educating, and Developing ‘Premier’ Permanent Direct-Hire Executive Recruiting Consultants in the Medical-Healthcare Staffing Industry.” Wow. That’s Nearly Every Word in caps. And For No Apparent Reason.
“Curious, I joined today. Was able to login a couple of times. Now my access is denied with username and password they gave me.” — commenter, Brandi
The comment is also rife with typos, grammatical errors and the wrong use of such words as “in breached of our Terms and Conditions Agreement,” and that he “hopes the information can be helpful to educate and clarify the negative comments.” Can you educate a comment? I guess you can try.
And this scrutiny brings me back to their website. This is also a place where typos and bad grammar abound. Maybe Richard Twight wrote this paragraph that’s front and center on the home page.
American Nurses association the largest nursing organization in the US talks about Nursing shortages and indicators; they state that The nation is facing an impending shortage of nurses, which is expected to peak by 2020. The most important prime indicator that they point out is the nursing population is aging rapidly. They discuss the aging of nurses over the next two decades for more information.
Hmmmm, let’s see, where to begin. The rest of the content isn’t much better. The entire home page is just grammatically challenged links to other websites.
It’s interesting to note that many prospective “contract associate recruiters” used this website with its couple of stock photos, a repurposed video someone else produced and these introductory paragraphs on various topics as some type of proof that the company is legit.
Really? Seriously?
Let’s be clear though. A website with lots of mistakes doesn’t mean the company is scamming. But neither does the mere presence of a website mean it’s not.
I also followed the buttons on the web site to the company’s Facebook fan page. There’s not much activity, but there is a comment from a woman who a week or so ago paid the money to become an associate recruiter, logged on a couple of times and now finds her access denied.
The LinkedIn button on HRP’s site doesn’t lead anywhere and the company does have a Twitter account, but hasn’t tweeted anything yet.
Don’t take our word for it on all this stuff though. A quick, rudimentary Google search will yield plenty more of this.
All of this brings me back to the conversation I had with a veteran executive recruiter last week.
Remember what he said? That professionalism is at the top of the best practices list for recruiters? You can complete the thought…I’m just saying.
If anyone has had any dealings with this company since the first piece ran in August we would love to hear from you.
COMING UP NEXT: MY OWN PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH AN UNSCRUPULOUS EXECUTIVE RECRUITER
