Pros
- Great coworkers who are friendly, fun, passionate, helpful, respectful that make some awesome team environments. People really are the strength of this company. - Meaningful projects/clients that get you exposed to some high profile work and help build portfolio. - Overall work/life balance is great. Work hours are flexible. I never experienced any micro-management or overtime. As long as you show up when you are needed or communicate ahead of time, you can arrange your schedule as you see fit. - Good culture overall. I had no issues with toxicity, harassment, discrimination or extreme drama.
Cons
- Pay is way, way below market rate which is not going to retain talent, sadly. A lot of people left for offers that double or triple what they make at ICF. When interviewing job candidates, some interviewees were shocked that the offer range was way below what they were currently making. The company is so set on profit and being “competitive” in bids that it doesn’t pay employees sufficiently. If your salary is high that means your rate for projects are high, which I’m sure the company is concerned about. It also runs you the risk of being the first to be laid off if they can’t “afford” you. - The company is too top heavy. This is related to the point above. The partners, division and group leaders, senior managers are probably all well taken care of, but the junior staff who are actually doing the work are not paid enough, which causes huge turnovers. I don’t know what it’d take for ICF to realize that treating your junior staff well would pay dividends down the road. Huge turnovers don’t look good with the clients. - It’s a stepping stone, not somewhere you can build long term career at if you are junior or mid-level. People easily jump to senior level positions elsewhere with way better salaries after two or three years here. - The benefits are too basic and not competitive at all. Health insurance is expensive. 401k matching is not great either. - The onboarding experience is a joke. New hires really just have the first day to get caught up on everything. There’s no ramping up period or detailed orientations or trainings. Mainly because they expect you to be billable right away and need to jump on projects asap. New hires are lucky if they have managers who can lend extra hands or attention. - Huge pressure on being billable at all times. If you are not you’ll probably be gone soon. The company doesn’t want to spend a dime making time for non-project related stuff. Gets ridiculous after a while. - Work can get repetitive after a while. - With the huge turnover and challenge attracting new talents, existing work falls on current employees who easily get burnt out. No one seems to be in a rush filling any roles fast though, as long as the work is still being done by someone.