Questel Reviews

The workload is unreasonable, unrealistic, and if you ask for help you'll be told to just get it done. No extensions are allowed, the C-suite has also sunk all the company's money into sales bonuses while under-investing in production, so production is understaffed, overworked, and was just told they would not get annual raises this year because there isn't money for it. Sales gets all the bonuses. Also, 2 people straight up died while I worked there. They didn't take time off, either, they were working up to the day they died. Company culture is sick, my supervisor used to neglect her child very obviously and vocally while we were all in unnecessarily long video meetings. One time the child was screaming that she was in pain and my boss laughed and said "she has a terrible ear infection, I have to take her to the hospital" but she put it off til after the meeting!!! It was incredibly uncomfortable listening to a child screaming in terrible pain, because ear infections are excruciating. The same level of total disregard for humanity is expected from all employees, and if you're not there for it they'll push you out. I seriously, seriously would not ever EVER work for them again, certainly not anywhere but sales and even then I wouldn't get invested because management is unpredictable and seemingly insane. Also, after one of our colleagues died suddenly overnight they remembered her in a meeting by saying "let's all give the best customer service we can, in her memory", and then a few weeks later in another meeting they said all employees needed to "give blood" to the company, this made me incredibly sad and uncomfortable.

My experience as Linguist with Questel never started, since I was ghosted. After passing the first 15-minutes generic interview with HR, they asked me to complete a short test - around 150 words of proofreading and 200 of translation. After submitting it, I never heard from the HR representative again. It has been a month already. Mind you, I usually never complain if I get ghosted after an interview - even though it is not fair, that is how the job market works nowadays. However, after completing a job FOR FREE, I would at least expect a "Thank you, but you were not selected." Communication consisted of cold two-line emails, with no greetings or formalities. When I called the office, after not hearing back from HR for weeks, they ensured someone would get in touch. It never happened. Plus, if you decide to start interviewing people mid-July, you cannot use August holidays as an excuse. I would definitely not recommend Questel to other linguists.