Pros
-Very good place to start your first job, fairly good industry exposure as well as various soft skill, pays well -The product GLG sells is an incredibly interesting one – this product is however marketed and handled in the worst way possible -Great office location, staff is young and international. Lots of smart people -Health insurance, dental, pension, occasional meals, events -Quick career progression (if you're in the right department) -As frustrating as the utter and complete obliviousness of departments such as strategy, finance and general US leadership can be to the problems the PSF business faces in Europe, we do have some solid leaders in Europe trying very hard to make them see things the way they are in real life, and not just how they appear on excel spreadsheets or finance reports -CEO is seriously trying as hard as he can to change things -All the below cons are valid and true, however it must be said that things are slowly starting to change in the right direction
Cons
-Not many company benefits/perks apart from the aforementioned ones -Job can be quite repetitive and while progression is quick, more money and more senior sounding titles do not necessarily mean more experience (hence the revolving door of employees) -"town hall" webcasts (company-wide transmissions where complacent US leaders proclaim how good things are going) should stop being a pathetic show off and rather focus on tackling real issues within the company, instead of hastily reserving time for questions from employees around the world that are either read out in a hurriedly/distorted way or waved off with corporate evading answers -The company is only now waking up and realizing the wave they've been surfing for the past years, which led them to being the market leader, is slowing but surely ebbing down and that things need to change if they are to remain the market leader -Tech/strategy departments are intensively focused on rolling out a new tech tool a month and only slowly tackling the inherent flaws that make associates' jobs cumbersome and experts' experience with the platform rather subpar. -Likewise but more broadly related to the general workflow, the company is only now seriously thinking about providing a better experience to its consultants by tackling a number of issues, after they've been cheesing them off for years -Metrics and targets, especially the ones introduced a couple of years ago, are a disgraceful wreckage. They are set with a one-size-fits-all approach, completely disregarding of regional/account nuances and differences, and employees are so pressured to hit these targets that they focus on getting as high numbers as possible and thereby forget about quality for clients (quality for client ≠ numbers) -The sales team is abysmally understaffed. Moreover, client-facing individuals have historically had little to no opportunity to meet clients face to face (although VPs and the Head of the Dublin office are keen to change this) -Business is highly transactional and capacity (or "bandwidth") often trumps client relationship building -The company is severely compartmentalized and silo'd. Different departments/business units have little idea what goes on a couple of desks away from them in different departments. -GLG prides itself on fostering a culture of feedback. During the time I worked at this company I have lost count of the times I have seen feedback being "seemingly" accepted, before people were told they lacked the "data" to support it, or the experience to make such a claim. Sure, you will have the opportunity to speak up and say, for example, that metrics are flawed - before being thanked and told that you need to follow them nevertheless because that's what the company has now.