Pros
+ good opportunity to get paid for pursuing your faith and leading other people to faith + you work on the school calendar so summers can be fun + generally speaking (there are horror stories) your teammates are energetic, fun, and passionate people. It can be a real fun time + the leadership training is really remarkable, much more than you should expect in other early career positions
Cons
- compensation is a BIG problem. you raise your own support. if you are outgoing, well connected to money, went to a school with people who will get good jobs, etc... then you are positioned to make good money. if you are not, then you will struggle miserably. many times on one team there are people who do the same job and have much different take home pay because one is connected and the other (maybe a minority person, maybe someone from a not-wealthy-denomination) will take home 1/2. - Campus Crusade for Conferences. It is no joke. Massive waste of staff time and donor dollars - The culture is Old School. The organization leaders talk a big game about being relevant, culture, new methods and the University as a center of ideas. However, change is slow. It is humorous that an effort to get rid of "Crusade", which brings images of Christians behaving badly (barbarously), the organization labored over a brand name change and the result is "Cru", which just leads the listener to ask, "what does that mean?". (facepalm) - professionalism is sometimes not very. staff in the regional offices are not necessarily in the roles because they were trained or experienced in accounting, event planning, operations, management, etc. there's an admirable 'have faith & courage and figure it out" attitude. people get promoted because of their faith and friendships more than because of their expertise. - Cru could be described as industrialized Christianity. There is a big emphasis on conversion numbers for staff. Campus staff are in sales and develop sales pitches. - forgetting to get out of Cru can be a career disaster. many times dads will say to young staff "do this for a while if you must". and, I'd say after 14 years, that this is good advice. after a few years, go get a real job. If you decide at 35 or 40 (with multiple kids and no marketable skills) that you want to transition, it will be tough.