I had been out of work for about 6 months when I went to visit HPG. I was told that they only take on a certain number of clients at one time and that they definitely could help me.
Their "secret" was by-passing Human Resources and putting you directly in front of the real decision makers. They claimed to have the contacts. They also said they had a couple of positions in mind for me already.
Then came the cost... $6,000. I got them to agree to take 50% up front and the balance if they placed me within 30 days. Needless to say, they never placed.
What you get for you money is nothing you can't do on your own. First off, my counselor knew little about my field so I basically wrote my resume by myself. Next they gave me a huge list of companies based on specific Standard Indistrial Classification (SIC) Indexes that I could've gotten myself from the Internet. Then they printed out hundreds of copies of my resume and told me to go mail them out. Their list is not very up to date either, as many of my resumes got returned as undeliverable.
The other advice I got was to call friends, family and past assocites to begin "networking." Who doesn't know that? There were no meetings with decision makers and no coaching sessions. Just a lot of false promises.
Being unemployed is difficult but don't get desperate and fall for these scams. You can do all the work yourself and keep your money in the bank.
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