Basically, Haldane lured me into paying a $5600 fee, to use them for their powerful contacts in the art and design industry, and access to a hidden job market. I was skeptical, but when they told me they only signed on a small percentage of people as clients, I was convinced.
Their big secret is referral interviews, where you write formal letters to all of your friends, family, business associates, etc, and tell them you're looking for a job, asking them for help. Well, when you've been unemployed, you've basically already done that yourself, and don't need someone to advise you to do it.
I told the "salesman" in my initial interview that I'd already exhausted all of my personal contacts, and he told me "that's why you need us", and "Haldane's powerful contacts".
I was desperate, and trusted them to find me my "dream job" as they said they would. As it turns out, none of the three career counselors I have worked with know anything about the art and design industry, and certainly don't have contacts at all in any of the companies around here. My second career counselor even told me to take any design and color off of my resume and business cards... But I was searching for a design job!
I'm now working at the front desk in a design firm, through very indirect help from Haldane, and this is certainly not my idea of a dream job. I paid them a quarter of my year's salary for this job, when I should have paid off a student loan.
I have complained to the "salesman" who signed me up a couple of times now about my situation, and it just ended up with an intimidating meeting in a room with two unfriendly men twice my age.in fact, the entire office is so sober and conservative that I was afraid I might scare my first career counselor if I wore too bright of a color.
I kept giving them more chances, but each time I meet with my current career counselor, I leave feeling very poorly about myself, and wondering again what they have done to earn my $5600. They had me convinced that I am just an unusual client, something's wrong with me, and I am the only one who's ever given them problems.
After doing some searching online, I now realize that there is nothing wrong with me, they just want to keep my money, and I am not alone in this! They somehow get out of answering every confrontational question I ever asked them.
Since then I have turned them into the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. Haldane has retaliated by offering me only a small percentage of my money back, and by reporting to the Better Business Bureau about my two panic attacks while in their office, among other insulting twists of the truth. They even had the nerve to include a 4-page print-out on panic disorder, which I have never been diagnosed with by a medical doctor, since I average only about 4 panic attacks per year.
They also included their so-called list of valuable industry contacts, which was a list of about 10 companies to whom I had already sent my resume before I signed up with Haldane, and on only one was a personal referral by my career counselor.
Sarah
Kettering, Ohio
U.S.A.
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