I have a few questions.

What they like to work for?

Also PM me as I have a few "private" ones ;)

Wait 'til 4am and phone 0845 1400250 ;)

I worked for them as an internet developer about 4 years ago now - what is it you are looking at doing for/with them?

Hello,

Just been to look for the plusnet building at the arena and its no where to be found.

Is it in the same building as insight? its not labbeled up?

I should think so - Insight is the parent company - but they were not in that building when I was working for them :)

hmmm,

they got a building in city centre and now in the building that used to "pulse" nightclub according to the maps.

But this is labelled insight so I presume its that !

they got a buliding down in sheaf/victoria quays (next to)

near the hilton in the city center. didnt know they had any premises with/near insight

They're in the same building as Insight in front of the Arena but they're a separate company now, it's the door at the end

I had an interview about a year ago with them.
They came across as pretty odd, I wouldn't have taken a job even if they'd offered it me.

well he was in a clown outfit! ;)

in what way "odd"?

Originally posted by kimera
well he was in a clown outfit! ;)

in what way "odd"?

the whole interview was odd.

It seemed to be a sales pitch targetted at investors, projections of future revenue, predictions of how the industry would develop and how they planned to capitalise on it.

It took 5 hrs, without actually having a 1-2-1 interview. The only normal bit was a half hour test, the rest was 4.5hrs of wasting my time.
I wasn't the only one, I actually met someone else from work there (bit of a surprise) and he said the same as soon as we walked out, he wouldn't take a job there if it was offered.

interesting.

i find it odd they you wouldnt want to know these things, any person going for a job should ask these questions.

although 5 hours is a bit much? Was it an open day type thing?

What job are you applying for?

There office location are shown here:

http://www.plus.net/careers/ouroffices/

Originally posted by kimera
interesting.

i find it odd they you wouldnt want to know these things, any person going for a job should ask these questions.

although 5 hours is a bit much? Was it an open day type thing?

I'd want some information, but I'm not an investor, I don't need a 2hr presentation on the companies prospects at a first interview.

30 mins would be sufficient, and there's no need for that until i've passed/failed the 1st interview stage.

It was all done backwards, and they concentrated way too much on selling the company, it would make more sense for everyone involved to do the initial selection first over a much shorter period of time.
And then for the shortlist people to get a bit more background on the company.

I'm not joking about the 5 hr duration. It literally took my entire saturday afternoon, the only things that compare in duration are the workshop style recruitment things. But even in those they aren't mostly about the company they are mostly about the candidate and how they approach tasks and interact with team members.

Thats interesting. I know my interview there was odd, I basically got shown around the building and asked a few questions, very casual. Now when I actually said I was up for the job there was a huge induction like you mentioned but spread over several days.

I didnt do an open-day as such though so that could be why.

Personally, despite their claims I think while the people there are pleasant and I quite enjoyed most of the atmosphere they have a big BIG problem - they do not give a crap about customer support. Well, let me elaborate on that as its not quite so cut and dry actually.

Their in-house customer support is dire (which I was working as part of) just constantly getting on at you for helping people with stuff you shouldnt and not hanging up on people who are complaining quick enough. Then, they go on that you must be polite, POLITE? How can you hang-up on someone complaining in a polite manner?

Seriously though, I do not think they are any worse than any other callcentre, but they arent any better either other than the people you are working with are probably more friendly.

I didnt make past a couple of months, their training is very poor and in the week my manager was supposed to help me improve my call times they restructured the company and fired me instead. Heck all the team managers were DEMOTED to customer service reps, my team manager left admitting he couldnt actually do the customer service job (huh, no wonder he couldnt train me to do it then!).

I think their development department must be in a similar state of mismanagement as despite the amount of testing they go through EVERY time they release a new feature on their website it fails to work properly. It took them AGES to get their bandwidth monitoring / time online graphs to work right and continued to charge people for using too much during the period it didnt work.

The shame of all this is that I think the people who work there WANT to do their jobs right but are not allowed to. Amazing as it may seem I would still work for them again if I was asked to as the people are really nice but their training and management let them down big time.

Hello,

I work for plusnet in their customer services department, not sure what the previous guy was talking about as ive been working there a year now and its pretty good, as the company is expanding alot at the moment its probly the best time to join.

Just to add if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at mpoole@plus.net cheers :)

Welcome to the forum by the way as well mate!!

have a few questions mate please if you can answer them on here for everyone to look at:

What is the pay like and what is the rate of pay?

AND

I work in customer services for a different company at the minute, can I get a job there and what do I need to know-dont know about Plus.Net?

Originally posted by Cyclone
I'd want some information, but I'm not an investor, I don't need a 2hr presentation on the companies prospects at a first interview.


I work as a Lead Software Developer at PlusNet and I know the recruitment open days you are talking about - I've been at most of them.

They are not first interviews. They are not even interviews - those come later for the lucky few. The open days are designed to 1) teach you as much about PlusNet as possible so you can decide whether you want to be part of it, and 2) to allow us to find out if you are the sort of person we'd want to share a desk with for the next few years, and 3) give you a quick technical test, just to prove the stuff on your CV isn't all made up (yes, some people do get caught out!)

It might sound like a sales pitch, and some of it is, but we use it to see how excited candidates get about what is an amazing company and who really wants to be a part of it. It works. There are usually a handfull of candidates who get enthusiastic and ask all the right questions and see the amazing opportunity in front of them. It is after all an amazing place. We work hard and play harder!

well, it would have been nice if i'd been given any feedback afterwards... It's only polite really since I wasted 5 hrs of my time listening to what I thought amounted to a sales pitch.

I'd much rather have had the technical test and a normal interview. If I was still in the running i'd have been happier then to come back for the longer information session. You just seem to be doing it all backwards.

The level of information being given out should also be reconsidered I think, i was looking for a developers role, whilst the company prospects are relevant, I'm not interested in revenue projections or the predicted total market worth in 2008.

Originally posted by Cyclone
well, it would have been nice if i'd been given any feedback afterwards... It's only polite really since I wasted 5 hrs of my time listening to what I thought amounted to a sales pitch.

I'd much rather have had the technical test and a normal interview. If I was still in the running i'd have been happier then to come back for the longer information session. You just seem to be doing it all backwards.

The level of information being given out should also be reconsidered I think, i was looking for a developers role, whilst the company prospects are relevant, I'm not interested in revenue projections or the predicted total market worth in 2008.

It might seem backwards to you, but to us it makes sense. We can get a rough idea of your skills from your CV without giving you test. We can only get and idea of what you are like as a person by meeting you and spending a few hours talking to you and getting a feel for how you feel about PlusNet. Interviews are a bit too formal for this purpose. Remember, it wasn't all presentation. We chatted to each and every candidate personally and you may not have been aware but we were all taking notes all the time. There was plenty of opportunity for those who wanted to stand out from the crowd to do so. It's very easy to see who is keen and who isn't. If we had to do a 1-on-1 formal interview with all 25 or 30 people it would take much, much longer; probably so long that we would miss people out. At one or two per day it would take weeks.

Basically, we think it is far more important to find the people we can have an interesting converstation with and who are keen and interested in coming to join us, than starting with the technical side and then discovering 2 months later that our latest addition to the team is very clever but too anti-social to work with.

It's a shame you weren't interested in the figures. Those figures are our targets and our bread and butter. Anyone who doesn't care about our targets won't help us to hit them, will they? There is no such thing as 'just a developer' at PlusNet. Everyone has the power to make or break the share price with their actions and their efforts.

Anyone who gets to the interview stage is given feedback if they are unsuccessful. Sorry you feel your time was wasted, but I can't agree. You learned enough about PlusNet to know that it would not suit you. That isn't a waste of time, is it?

personally I found the 'chat' very artificial. No one actually seemed very interested in talking, the few times I asked anything at all technical the conversation was quickly changed.

But yes, I did learn enough to know I didn't want to work there. But I could have learnt that a lot quicker I think.

For that matter, unless you all had invisible notepads I don't see how you could possible make notes. given that there were about 12 - 15 candidates you'd have to have eidetic memories to remember who had said what after talking to that many strangers over the space of an hour.

It wasn't only me that found the process odd, my colleague also commented on how strange it was, and neither of us are that unfamiliar with both sides of the selection process.

Sorry if you didn't get all the technical answers you needed, but please remeber not everyone you spoke to would be a developer. We had reps from all areas of the business and some are non-techy. We do try to keep the talk off technical subjects as much as possible in order to find out more about you personally and socially. I agree you still should have had your questions answered though, so sorry for that.

We did all have notepads, and you all had name-badges so we could remeber everyone and not get mixed up. The fact that you didn't see anyone taking notes was deliberate. You would have realised you were being judged so we disappeared every now and again to write everything down discretely. We all got together after you left and collated our notes and discussed each candidate in turn. It is an unbiased process as everyone had the chance to speak to at least a few PlusNet reps.

I'm sorry our techniques didn't work for you, but trust me - they work for us. Please also remember that some candidates travel long disances to attend these days so it is important not to waste their journey and to squeeze as much into the day as possible.

Our process may seem odd to you, but it's not odd; it's just different. It works for us and for those who are successfull so I don't think we'll be changing it in a hurry. Most people appreciate the efforts we go to in making it a relaxing and informative day.

Originally posted by evildrneil
I should think so - Insight is the parent company

Parent company my ass, you know very well that we're a free standing PLC now.

How's it hanging dear?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by poole
[B]Hello,

I work for plusnet in their customer services department, not sure what the previous guy was talking about as ive been working there a year now and its pretty good,]

Well I used to chat to a now x employee of plusnet on Usenet and his experience of the company couldn't be more different. you could do an advanced google groups search for wango and plusnet and see what I mean.

Originally posted by spud
His experience of the company couldn't be more different. you could do an advanced google groups search for wango and plusnet and see what I mean.

Wango... I remember him :wave: . If your still in contact with Gary say hi from me.

I'm in development rather than with customer services who are in a different building but I'm very happy here and could recommend the company to anyone who's up for the challenge.

Looking across the room I can see six former support staff Wango worked along side. All have taken the opportunities Plusnet offers, invested in themselves and been promoted to senior management, software engineering and quality assurance positions.

That's part of the reason for the 'sales pitch' in the open days which sparked this entire thread. Plusnet's on a mission and looking to employ people enthused enough to help us get there.

Nigel

Originally posted by nwood
Wango... I remember him :wave: . If your still in contact with Gary say hi from me.

-snipped-
Nigel

Hi Nigel - I was messaged the link earlier today - Yes I was in Plus for a very short stint not that I expected or wanted it that short but it's all water under the bridge now. Time is indeed a great healer. When your faced with losing your house and thousands of pounds it's not the most motivating factor when someone asks you your opinion t that time :-(

Although I never saw it at the time it was the best thing ever to happen for me and my family and possibly for Plusnet too in all honesty, that we'll never know.

I re-evaluated what I wanted to do and added service management into the ops background I had and now work with a contract team of professionals who are absolutely superb and in many ways remind me of some of the hard working Plus guys and gals.

It's different at each company and not everyone is right for you but it sometimes takes time to find that out sometimes when it's too late.

I have recently just succesfully completed my ITIL service management exams (Boy was that a tough course to get through and don't even ask the cost, Ouch!) and am now going through Prince II.

Since moving on from Plus I started contracting and been doing that for almost 3 years (Highly recommended and I wish I'd done this years ago there's much more money in it and a lot of risk).

A lot of the guys I worked with in Plus and who I initially had to manage were great - I was absolutely amazed at the loyalty of many of the peeps in Plusnet and never could understand why -possibly the fact theres not much else in this line of work in the area but Plusnet should be proud of those workers, Mark my then Team Leader, Mike G in networks, Kelly, John Plant, Nick Silverwood to name a few treated me very well and were very helpful and supportive as were others - apologies for names missing too many names to list.

A good friend of mine I recommended is still there and has done very well for himself that I can see and indeed I never doubted wouldn't as he's one of the best in the business IMHO.

Good to see this forum and glad to post up that despite my earlier issues I don't hold grudges and wish Plus and the team that I knew (Ok most of them) the very best ;-)

Regards
Gary

I personally wouldn't work for Plusnet again.

I worked for them for about 14 months. I found the environment very fake and stressful. Not what I wanted,wages are below average from what I have had since leaving too.

Maybe have a look on the forums on the site and on the ADSL forums... the staff used to post on those... not sure if they still do though.

Ive been at PlusNet for 2 months now...and while working 9 hours takes it out of you the money is good, and the environment is also good....if a little stuffy today!

Overall its a good place to work, not your typical call center where you are forced to take call after call after call and have to raise you hand and ask if its ok to go to the toilet!

Its all good as far as im concerned!

Originally posted by Avalon
Ive been at PlusNet for 2 months now...and while working 9 hours takes it out of you the money is good, and the environment is also good....if a little stuffy today!

Overall its a good place to work, not your typical call center where you are forced to take call after call after call and have to raise you hand and ask if its ok to go to the toilet!

Its all good as far as im concerned!

An interesting alternate point of view, I take it you've worked in other call centres before?

Most of the negative comments have come more from the IT professional/developer side of things, where the environment is less relaxed than the norm.

Originally posted by nwood
[B]Wango... I remember him :wave: . If your still in contact with Gary say hi from me.

i spoke to gary only yesterday, the balloon is doing fine!
witch xx

Originally posted by Cyclone
An interesting alternate point of view, I take it you've worked in other call centres before?

Most of the negative comments have come more from the IT professional/developer side of things, where the environment is less relaxed than the norm.

I have indeed...