Hi all, any one knows what working in Freshminds is like?Is it helpful as a stepping stone for consulting?What is the starting salary out of college? tks!

Nice, small firm with a chilled out Ethos. They have two strands, recruitment and research. To a degree, research can serve as a stepping stone to Consulting, however not the easiest thing in the world I'm guessing.Starting salary, I'm guessin c. £25,000

It depends on whether you're working as a fulltime employee or as a "Mind" (temporary researcher).As hmmm says, they are a fairly good, bright, young organisation to work for. There are a number of articles on them in the business press if you do a media search.If you are working as a fulltime employee, graduates are on £20k in both research and recruitment streams. If you are a Mind, earnings will depend on how often you get work. Most Minds get work infrequently, though top performers naturally get better allocations. Rates start at around £40 per day and top out at £100 per day so, assuming you're working 250 days a year (i.e. just take off bank holidays and a couple of extra days at Xmas), you'd be on track for £25k per annum rate at the maximum end.

Ouch, didn't realise the salaries were so average!!

FreshMinds has had a lot of press abouts its research - they have won the MRS Research and Efficiency awards two years in a row. They also won the Best Employer award in 2006, so might be a good place to work...

Hi, I used to work as a 'Mind' at FreshMinds whilst between degrees and jobs. I worked at MBBB firms on projects and research. This was temporary project work however it paid "a lot!" per hour. Quite elitist, good contacts in strat firms and a very bright and fresh atmosphere. If you are good enough to get the right work I'm sure you can make contacts in consulting firms if you make an impression. Good hunting.

I wonder if the Charlie who made the post about it being a good place to work is the Charlie who happens to be one of the MDs there?I was a "mind" whist at uni and have to say that I wasn't all that impressed with them. Generally quite disorganised and didn't even pay for all the work I did for them. Although they did pay my ex-boyfriend for some of it and ask him to pass it on to me! Not exactly professional. But maybe they've grown up since then?

I was not all that impressed by them when using once for research / interviewing on a project a while ago. Again they may have improved since then, but I would never use them again or recommend them if I could help it

Yeah I wasn't too impressed when I tried to use them about 3 years ago - said they'd found me a role which sounded great, then never got back to me even though I hassled/left messages, got interested in hiring me themselves but then when i turned them down never contacted me again even though i'd said i was still jobhunting... ended up sorting myself out.