So, you need help with your job search, and you’re considering hiring an agency to help bridge the gap.
You’ve possibly heard about Executive Career Upgrades’ reverse recruiting service and are wondering if they’re worth the investment.
You’ve come to the right place! Today, we will review Executive Career Upgrades and their reverse recruiting (or managed job search) services.
We have taken a deep dive into the customer reviews, cost, services offered, and staff at Executive Career Upgrades. Our overall rating for Executive Career Upgrades is 60/100.
Executive Career Upgrades Score
Our goal is to help you find the best service that will advance your career. Take a look at some of our top-rated reverse recruiting services and find the perfect fit for you!
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About Executive Career Upgrades
Executive Career Upgrades was established in 2015 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. The career development company was created by married couple Tim and Kristina Madden.
Staying true to its name, the company’s services are geared towards executives, directors, VPs, and career professionals in the six-figure range. The career service company relies on the expertise of Tim Madden, a former recruiter with over 14 years of headhunting experience.
Tim has seen thousands of resumes and has connected with top executives across several industries. He leverages this network and experience to help his clients land choice roles. To be more specific, he provides tools and strategies to achieve career advancement.
Since its inception, Executive Career Upgrades has secured top positions for over 8,000 professionals in more than 20 industries. The company also claims that their expertise helps clients increase their compensation by 20-30%.
They have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, and Business Insider.
Executive Career Upgrades Pros vs. Cons
As with any company, there are pros and cons. It’s up to you to determine what is a “must-have” and what things you can live without.
PROS
- Founder has over 14 years of recruiting experience to leverage.
- Exclusive focus on executive-level professionals.
- Featured in Forbes, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, and Business Insider.
- Access to network of over 2,900 decision-makers weekly.
CONS
- Most of the job search work falls on the client.
- Lack of transparency in their service cost.
- Website provides little information about the job search process.
- 30-day money-back guarantee can be misleading.
If you are looking for a career service provider, Executive Career Upgrades is a good option, but it is worth considering other alternatives to find the best fit for your needs.
One such alternative is Find My Profession. FMP, like Executive Career Upgrades, caters to executives and networks on your behalf.
Unlike Executive Career Upgrades, Find My Profession has an average rating of 4.9/5 from over 1,000 previous clients and possesses far more reverse recruiting experience. Additionally, Find My Profession will apply to jobs for you and uses personalized networking efforts instead of an automated process.
Executive Career Upgrades Customer Reviews
Our career experts have rated Executive Career Upgrades a 60/100. Additionally, Executive Career Upgrades has received a 4.8/5 rating on Google and 4.49/5 on BBB.
Google shows 39 reviews with an average rating of 4.8/5. Reviewers had good things to say about their experience with the company. We did find two critical reviews about the company not delivering on its promise of landing you a job.
BBB shows 86 reviews with an average rating of 4.49/5. While most of the reviews were positive, we did find a few comments claiming that ECU was a scam and that they got no results even after paying hefty sums of money.
Tim Madden’s LinkedIn page shows 68 recommendations from satisfied clients. However, the most recent one at the time of writing this article is from June 2022.
As with anything, it’s important to take each review with a grain of salt. Additional research should be done beyond reading the reviews that are found online.
How Much Does Executive Career Upgrades Cost?
Executive Career Upgrades charges $6,500 – $12,000 for their career advancement services. This is on the higher end of the spectrum and only a few companies charge this much.
Unfortunately, the company does not disclose the cost of its reverse recruiting service on its website. We were, however, able to gauge the price range based on different comments from their past clients.
For instance, some clients were charged $6,500+, and one client was even billed $12,000 and still had to settle hidden fees for services not discussed initially.
It is not clear why the ECU team does not have a transparent pricing system or why they charged some professionals more than others. Several clients have reported experiencing aggressive sales tactics and bait-and-switch strategies during their consultations.
To be clear, Executive Career Upgrades is not a recruiting or staffing agency. They are not headhunters. They work as reverse recruiters, which means they work directly for the job seeker.
The benefit of reverse recruiting is that they are completely invested in your job search. The downside is that all fees are paid directly by the job seeker.
So yes, the cost, whatever it may be, would be paid by you upfront (not after you get hired).
For the most accurate and up-to-date details on package pricing at Executive Career Upgrades, we recommend that you visit their website directly and schedule a consultation with their team.
Executive Career Upgrades Process
Executive Career Upgrades employs a clear and strategically sound process to help you find your dream job with their reverse recruiting service.
- Introductory session: The process begins with a complimentary session where you have a chat with a team member about your career goals and expectations.
- Career plan: Following the intro session, the ECU team will create a 90-day plan to revamp and transform your career.
- Career documents: Here, the Executive Career Upgrades team will assess whether or not your resume and LinkedIn need to be optimized. If so, the team rewrites and or fine-tunes them.
- Career coaching: Once your career documents are in tip-top shape, your coaching begins. ECU provides you with coaching sessions focusing on interview tactics and strategies, as well as salary negotiation.
- Automation: ECU’s process involves helping you set up an automated outreach system. This allows you to send messages and emails to prospects automatically.
- Networking: At this phase, they’ll leverage their extensive network to help get in front of approximately 2,900 decision-makers every week. By ‘extensive’, we mean that the network includes decision-makers in ECU’s network, their past clients’ networks, and even your network. It’s hard to know if anyone in this network will be hiring for the roles the client is seeking.
To keep you motivated and on course, ECU will meet with you one-on-one every week for progress reports. You’ll also have group calls twice a week with other professionals to trade success stories and motivate each other. Additionally, you and these professionals will be added to a private Slack community where you can stay in touch.
If you haven’t noticed already, Executive Career Upgrade’s service is heavily reliant on the job seeker with coaching sessions and required certifications. That is, though they promise to help you get a job, most of the work will be done by you.
Executive Career Upgrades Team
The Executive Career Upgrades team is composed of 15 individuals, per the company’s “About” page. Their LinkedIn profile, on the other hand, mentions 30+ team members, all based in the United States.
Executive Career Upgrades (ECU) is headed by Tim and Kristina Madden. Tim started out in the recruitment industry as a military recruiter in 2011. On the other hand, Kristina joined the career advancement industry in 2015 when she created a leading staffing agency called Madden Direct.
CEO Tim held several staffing and headhunting roles before finally creating ECU in 2015. Most of his experience stems from working with US veterans and helping them transition into a civilian lifestyle. He leverages this experience to help executives advance and get in front of more 6-figure opportunities.
A quick dive into the background of other team members revealed just a little bit of recruiting experience in diverse industries.
To be specific, only 3 out of the entire 37 LinkedIn team members had prior recruiting experience. In fact, it seems several profiles had their first work experience at Executive Resume Upgrades.
We expected to find designations or skills relating to resume writing, LinkedIn profile optimization, and more. Sadly, only two team members from their LinkedIn page had resume writing experience, and they were not even listed on the company’s website.
That being said, according to their website, the combined efforts of the ECU team have helped over 8,000 professionals reach the next stages of their careers.
Is Executive Career Upgrades a Scam?
While we can’t tell you a yes or no outright, all we can do is provide you with facts we know, and from there, you can decide whether or not to trust their services.
The most concerning fact about Executive Career Upgrades is their lack of transparency about the cost of their services. We’ve seen testimonials of previous clients being charged varying rates. While one might argue that it’s some sort of tiered system, it’s impossible to know for sure, since they’re not being open about it.
Besides not being transparent, it even looks like ECU’s clients are paying hefty sums upfront. With some reverse recruiting services, clients can pay a fee each month until they achieve their goals. This helps them save money, as they’ll only pay for as long as they use the service.
ECU has charged clients $6,500 – $12,000. Though they can pay in installments, there’s no option to stop paying if they no longer want the service. In other words, whether you get a job offer in one week or in three months, you’ll still need to pay the entire exorbitant amount ECU quoted.
We visited the complaints section of their BBB page. We found a ton of complaints from dissatisfied clients. The common issue among these complaints is the failure to provide job interviews and offers as promised by the company.
Adding to their list of faults is the fact that dissatisfied clients have said that the company doesn’t honor its money-back guarantee. Apparently, ECU promises skeptical prospects a money-back guarantee, but when it’s time to pay up, the company finds a loophole to escape accountability. Some clients have even gone as far as saying the company uses ‘bait and switch’ sales tactics.
Finally, their automated outreach system is another problem. While it seems to save time on job search, we’re a bit concerned that this makes it impossible to personalize every outreach effort.
That said, further research is needed to determine if Executive Career Upgrades makes good on its claims of advancing executive-level professionals to the next stages of their careers.
Is Executive Career Upgrades Worth It?
Whether or not Executive Career Upgrades is worth it is entirely up to you.
Our goal is to provide you with the most transparent and helpful information possible. But, only you know what is best for you and your career.
Here is a summary of our findings on Executive Career Upgrades:
- Customer Reviews: 15/25
- Cost to Value: 15/25
- Time Savings: 10/25
- Team Knowledge: 20/25
- Total Score: 60/100
We highly recommend reviewing 2-3 services before making a final decision.
If you’re in need of a fully managed job search service, we suggest checking out Find My Profession. With a team of experienced reverse recruiters and a commitment to customer satisfaction, Find My Profession can help you find your dream job. And with a perfect score of 100/100, you can trust that you’ll be in good hands!
