Gradfuel Reviews 57

I received a call from George offering me two job interviews in the same week. He was lovely and great to talk to on the phone and helped me organise when to have the interviews because I had a very busy week.
Would highly recommend them they have lovely people who work for them and they helped me get a job

always keeping me updated on job opportunities and setting up meetings quickly with many different companies and business/sales roles. Interview prep was an added bonus, many gems to take away and utilise such as what to say, how to say it and presentation.

Gradfuel is a great way for young people to find work! The team is very enthusiastic and keen to get you into work. I had a quick chat with George and from that he managed to find suitable employment and book interviews for me within a couple days after being on UC for months! You will definitely have successful outcomes. 10/10 would recommend to anyone looking for work

I had the pleasure of meeting Jemma at a kickstart job fair, where she took the time to take on board what I was looking for and within two days of meeting her, scheduled interviews for me, sending me all the relevant details via email so that I could prepare. Jemma was extremely proactive from start to finish and got everything moving quickly, whilst also supporting me throughout the process (calling me after my interviews and through regular contact). I have now been placed and am starting my new job shortly! I would like to thank Jemma for making my experience with Gradfuel seamless! I'm excited to see where this journey takes me.

Please save yourself the headache and waste of time. I let this drama carry on for too long as I wasn't desperate for the new staff through the DWP, as we could hire directly.

If you want to read the details see below:

Karl Collett got in touch with me in Nov 2020 re. the Kickstarter scheme and quickly got me to fill in all the forms and job profiles.

March 2021 - Karl emails saying, we haven't been approved by the DWP.

April 2021 - Karl email and apologises saying we were actually approved and I need to complete 3 job forms which I do.

No response to any emails from Gradfuel until June

June 2021 - Karl responds saying "The DWP have had a few issues with volume of roles coming through , so we will resend with a note to expedite and get the jobs live ASAP. (also extend the open dates for you to give ample time to hire) "

After writing to Lewis and then the CEO, Elliot I got a response from Elliot later in June saying

"We are definitely not running a scam here with the team, but have come under immense pressure due to the nature of the Kickstart Scheme. This case in particular, includes faults from our own team including external delays that I'm not impressed with.

Would you be free to jump on a call to discuss this further and your experiences, between 11-1pm on Tuesday next week? I'd also like to offer some way we can rectify the mistakes."

And he promises to turn everything around on the call. So that's great!

BUT, disappear again until August when someone called Molly Norton emails me saying she will take on our management and sends me some CVs by email.

Oct 21 - Molly writes back saying

"The roles were actually not ever made live, but feel free to contact the DWP directly about this to confirm.

There was a confusion with the file that the DWP shared with us, which led us to believe your roles were live when in fact they weren't."

The lack of professionalism of this company is just beyond measure!

I will take it up with the DWP and see what has really happened.

I have had a very positive experience of working with Gradfuel - and have successfully hired 7 new joiners through the government's Kickstart scheme, several of which were found directly by the Gradfuel team.

The Kickstart scheme itself has been a mess as the UK's Job Centres were ill prepared to deliver on the scheme when it was first launched. Gradfuel have borne the brunt of the frustrations and chasing that have been needed over the last few months.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Gradfuel team to other SME business owners.

A really positive experience from a fantastically helpful, supportive & hard working team.

Accessing government Kickstart funding to help us bring on new talent was lengthly - but the team at Gradfuel were incredibly supportive through the entire process.

A huge thanks to the team for helping us find & fund new young talent.

Firstly there are some actually decent people that work at gradfuel. Unfortunately the price point they have set as their fee is entirely without justification in terms of the amount of work they do in terms of paperwork or assisting in any shape or form other than to ensure you complete the process in a manner which enables you and them to get paid. Its genuinely a bad idea from a business perspective to work with these guys - it is a very simple process and these guys will only slow things down and charge you an unreasonable fee for both your own stupidity in choosing to go with them and for the privilege of it taking twice as long as it would have done if you went direct which you are able to do now. So in conclusion nice folk just trying to make an easy buck making things more complicated than it actually needs to be.

Gradfuel were great in helping our company; Beyond The Bar secure essential kickstarter placements to aid business ops.

The timeline for completion has been a little while (since Feb) but it was due to the government changing application process and leaving Gradfuel in the lurch.

Unlike other people on here, we hadn't planned for our business to RELY on these positions being filled so we were not enraged at the delays and understood that it's a totally new process for all parties involved.

Despite there being a lot of back and forth over the time period, Karl was great at keeping us in the loop (despite there being no real updates for months at a time).

Keep it up Gradfuel! This country needs to skill up young people and help them progress into good jobs!

Cheers from the Team at Beyond The Bar!

Ed

I have had a great experience using GradFuel. With their help, I have been able to access grant funding to support the hire of a number of fantastic new employees.

The team at Gradfuel have been extremely professional, supportive and helpful throughout the long winded and complicated Kickstarter process.

Reading the comments below, it sounds like others have been frustrated by delays that are out of Gradfuel's control (as expected from a scheme that accesses government funding).

My experience with GradFuel has been really positive - with a great team who has been great at communicating through all stages of the process.

Gradfuel have been instrumental in helping our business survive & flourish in lockdown/covid times. Their access to government Kickstart grants (which I believe they are the no1 government partner for), knowledge of the whole process & the graduate employee recommendations they gave us, have all been spot on. Thoroughly recommend to other small business owners like myself

Met these guys at a job fair, talked about my interests, and was booked in for an interview the next day!!!

Had a new job after 2 phonecalls! Great to work with

AVOID AT ALL COST!

We really needed the extra help to hire new team members and decided to use Gradfuel for the kickstart scheme. We signed the agreement in March, waited for months (not just weeks), chased Karl Collett several times only to hear his endless excuses. We eventually contacted DWP directly in July only to find out 4 months after our agreement, Gradfuel never even applied and kept lying to us about the progress the whole time.

We had really stressful times due to lack of staff when we needed the most and Karl decided to waste our time instead of being helpful. We already reported this company and their partners to relevant government bodies and will pursue complaining for putting our business in a tricky situation for the last months.

Avoid at all costs, go apply yourself which we found out is a straightforward process...

I chose to use the kickstart scheme to support young people and Gradfuel (Karl) sold me the promise that the do all the work for you & find you candidate & set up interviews. They claim that you need them for a high success rate for approval - absolute nonsense.
Biggest scam ever!
I have had to do ALL the work and after months of complaining and being promised things will improve there has been nothing. I have started doing the process myself & its easy & approval is given quick easily. I have placed candidates entirely on my own and ZERO from Gradfuel yet they still claim the commission.
They just don't know what they are doing & the guy Karl that i was dealing with is arrogant and rude and they just dont do anything.

Do NOT use GradFuel if you are trying to hire someone through the Kickstart Scheme - They will take £600 from your initial Grant and not do any of the work they promised. I ended up having to do ALL of the admin that they promised to take off my hands and as a new company that was not ideal.

Every time we asked for clarification on specific things, we were either ignored or they took forever to reply, and even when they did they couldn't answer our questions.

I feel scammed. Thoroughly disappointed.

No progress at all in three months from Gradfuel - lots of promises and zero delivered - possibly not their fault but if I had my time again I'd not use Gradfuel.