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Charles River Associates

Engaged Employer

Charles River Associates reviews

4.0

74% would recommend to a friend

(603 total reviews)
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Paul Maleh

71% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Charles River Associates has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 603 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Charles River Associates employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

603 reviews
1.0
Jul 6, 2025

Work literally anywhere else

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Perfect place for you if either of the following applies to you: - want to commit career suicide - do not have an ounce of self respect

Cons

- Very opaque promotion processes. Promotions are usually based on tenure/degree and not performance. You might be 5-6 years into the job and still have to babysit new PhD hires who know nothing and make 100K more than you in base salary. - All your bosses are Econ PhDs and will use “my training is in economics not management” as a crutch even after decades of managing people. They are so hyper-focused on their project work and do not care about their employees. Some of them have questionable morals and will play dead or shut you down when you raise serious concerns. The organization structure also makes it so that no one has to be responsible for anything that’s not project work, which creates a very dysfunctional work culture. - The rainmakers will bend over backwards to cater to clients’ unrealistic requests by making the team work nonstop (no evening or weekend plans for months). Those hours help VPs bring in tens of millions of revenue and yet the year-end bonus for juniors are insultingly low. - HR is worse than unhelpful. Take a look at the ratings by demographics on Glassdoor and notice how Asians (vs Whites) and Women (vs Men) have much lower average ratings. Again, this is not a functional workplace in terms of culture and general well-being

5.0
Jun 19, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

CRA has a beautiful Chicago office and free lunch twice a week. Colleagues are very smart and friendly.

Cons

Typical hours of the consulting industry

Viewing 37 - 39 of 603 Reviews

Glassdoor has 670 Charles River Associates reviews submitted anonymously by Charles River Associates employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Charles River Associates is right for you.