Pros
Disclaimer, I gave the company 4 stars since my experience has been good so far and I'm nearing a year of employment with them. I will also not sugar coat things I found wrong and unethical. Refer to cons for the stuff to keep in mind. 1) You will get your foot into the door into big financial companies if you play your cards right. 2) They have implemented paid training to catch up with the times and attract better candidates. A current trainee that I know is making $12 an hour while being trained for 3 months. 3) They're model is to have a consultant work on site for two years with the possibility of getting hired internally from the site that you work with after. I've seen a couple cases of this during my 1st year onsite. 4) During my time at the academy, everything was transparent and I fully understood what I was getting into. 5) I knew where I was going to be after my training during my 5th week at the academy. 6) If you happened to be in the right place and right time, you'll get some good stuff and a hand shake from the CEO for being the 1000th employee in the US. If you did not have a good internship during college, or knew the right people, FDM might be a good stepping stone for a career in corporate America. Some of the previous negative reviews (US Based) are through candidates who believed all the sugar coating that was said during their assessment / academy process.
Cons
1) Account managers could be a little bit pushy with trying to get their positions filled. They are in fact salesmen and their two targets are clients for positions, and candidates who will fill them. This being said, as long as you are a level headed person and you do not believe every single thing the account managers say, you should be fine and deal with them just fine. They like to use their British accents and smiles to charm everyone. Just be aware, if you go on an interview and get the position at a client's site, it's pretty much set in stone unless you want to fight a war changing utility companies. 2) Everyone keeps talking about account managers in previews reviews so I can quote another experience that did not happen personally to me but I saw it unfold. A trainee wasn't approached by account managers for interviews so that person decided to reach out to account managers to possibly get some interviews with clients. Because the position was outside the tri-state area, this person declined to move forward with the interview stages. Apparently the account manager didn't like that and spoke to the academy manager about how said trainee is leaving a baste taste in their mouth by declining interviews. Said trainee only declined one interview which was outside his tri-state area contract. 3) There is a separation fee if you decide to leave within the first two years voluntarily for the training provided and services given while placing a candidate. You could be fined 30000 for leaving the company the first year and it becomes a 20000 fine the second year. 4) Pay structure is weird with having a basically salary and a daily bonus rate. If you take paid vacation, bank holidays or have been furloughed due to a decision on a bank, you will be penalized by missing out on half of your pay for those days. 5) If you get sent back to the academy and sit there too long without getting placed at a different site, the company will let you go since you are a cost to them. That would be fine but HR will tell you during assessment day that pretty much "everyone" will be on site for 2 years straight and that cases of people being let go are few and far between, I know of 4 so far. 6) Another point on skewed numbers. During the assessment day, HR will claim that most people end get getting hired internally after their 2 year commit. I myself asked if they kept any kind of statistics or metrics on this and they told me they did not. Now I'm not a rocket scientist, but if you tell me something and have no evidence to back it up, the credibility of that statement is just about void.
