From a 'trying to build a long term career perspective', too many to name. I am going to share my experience below to highlight what to me felt like an extremely underhanded move and is an extreme risk regarding this company going forward---
In my honest opinion, I got done very badly here after putting in a year of solid work and maintaining what I genuinely believed to be great relationships with most everyone there. Something that I saw too many times to count while working there was that they get you to land solid customers and then they look to fire you when any sort of flimsy excuse arises so they can take the customer you rightfully attained for yourself, cut the broker margin in half on it while increasing their margin on it, and hand it to one of their childhood friends. In my opinion, this is not honest or ethical business practice. In my case specifically, I had many different customers who I constantly worked with. A few of those customers did very high volume shipping during most of the year, and I had worked hard throughout my time there building and maintaining those relationships. Maintaining these types of clients requires being on call 24/7 and spending much of your free time keeping their transportation running smoothly. You a hear a lot of people whine about this extra work, I did not have any problem with it. I have a problem with this extra investment being a complete waste when the company decides to 'let you go' for the sole purpose of reassigning your accounts to their cronies at a more favorable margin for themselves. In my situation, I had no legitimate reason to get fired when I did or the way I did (without warning, just show up one day with a full day of work you need to complete, and at 8 am some of the mgmt worshipping underlings tell you 'we have to let you go' with absolutely no legitimate reason why). The people who actually make the decision, and who are benefitting from underhandedly taking your customers are too sideways to even be present and look you in the eye and give you a legitimate reason. You give 100% to these people and that is how they do you. Then they lock the doors to the office and open all the windows- after you drive away in your car- assuming you (their friend and colleague) is gonna roll up and go postal. This should say more about what they just did to you than anything else. I know this not because I came back but because someone told me
Looking back, I see that me being let go was a complete setup for my last month there I was there by the few select individuals saw the opportunity to make a couple extra bucks. My year round profit average (the bare bones of everything in this business) was far from the worst in the company. There are people still getting paid there who have had more than enough time to start generating decent profits who still lose the company money every week, and they get to keep their jobs. They cant even cover the measly salary that they are getting paid. I was not in the top half of brokers at this place numbers wise, but in my first year as a broker with no previous experience in the field, I made this company a decent chunk of money every single week that I was there and my accounts had a lot of promise. These are all customers I rightfully earned, on my own, without any charity from upper level. They know very well that a ton of the work I did was seasonal, and they pounced on the opportunity when I had a slow 6 week period to let me go and snatch up my customer who was massive and had a ton of potential going forward. This was literally 1 week before the produce started moving heavily again and I was about to start making good money. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. If numbers were truly the reason why I got let go, then why do at least 30 other people who make less money than I did year round, and whose accounts provide far less promise/potential going forward still have a job?? I could go into further detail, but that is the jist of it.
In closing, this company is starting to grow, in turn higher ups are getting hungrier and more willing to make money by putting every day Americans-- looking to work towards a long term career-- out of work (in my case they used unethical and immoral business practices at the expense of honest, hard working employees). Just like every other successful brokerage, the business model is hire/fire. Get the fresh people in to land a few new customers, let them go and then 'reassign' their accounts at a more favorable margin, and let the merry-go-round keep spinning. In my honest estimation and opinion roughly 75% of new hires will be gone within 3-15 months. There will be promise of this and that, and HR might tell you a bunch of half truths to get you on board, but ultimately it is about money for the very select few... As is most business in this country. And at this place, this select few is impenetrable, they are well established and do not hesitate to use and dispense of outsiders for their own gain. This tactic is used in almost every other facet of this business as well, so if you genuinely care about your fellow man, it might not be for you. I saw a few people there constantly sucking up and selling other people out to get in management's good graces in hopes of the non-existent carrot on a string. This is another business tactic they work to their advantage. Their is no imminent promotion, there are no advancement opportunities. You can make a lot of dough as a broker if you are good, but if you think management is gonna give you any sort of promotion, and you will start climbing a ladder, you are wrong. There are a few mgmt positions and they are filled with guys in their 30s who will not be going anywhere till they retire. As the company grows, there will always be brokers who are happy to play the office mgr role for no additional pay.
This review has been written honestly and rationally based on the whole entire truth from my personal experience at IEL. You could definitely do a lot worse than this place, but if you are looking for something long term with good job security, I personally would not recommend IEL. Especially now that they are into more rapid growth and the base of preferred employees is already well established.
