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Northwestern University

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Ok place, depending *entirely* on your office - Full Time Staff Northwestern University Employee Review

3.0
Aug 2, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Beautiful campus and access to a wide range of extra benefits, like discounts at local business, access to the athletic center, the shuttle down town to Chicago, etc. The Performance Excellence program (annual review) is good, but not intuitive, and seems to take everyone hours and hours to complete. Overall, processes, well, work. I've worked at an institution where things often just went wrong because of a wide range of issues (poor planning, poor follow-through, no administrative communication, etc.). Lots of opportunity for advancement, hypothetically.

Cons

The problem with NU is that it is decentralized, so many offices are silos. This means that you don't get much of a chance to mingle or network with other offices. This is bad for personal professional development, and it's bad for the school overall as offices are not sharing information that is needed to improve. HR is kind of disorganized. I once called for one piece of information and was transferred 3 times by phone. This decentralization also leaves you at the mercy of your own office. If you work in an office that has some problems, like mine, then you are left without recourse.

Explore other reviews about Northwestern University

5.0
Jul 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work experience, and I got to work with a professor during the process.

Cons

Can be more difficult to get higher pay

4.0
Jul 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's steady and stable money. Coworkers can be great, and benefits can be good**

Cons

They recently changed all of the benefits due to the government administration pulling federal funding. They changed from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United so the insurance is pretty bad now, with higher premiums and higher copays. You get a 90% discount on tuition, yet also about 97% of the graduate programs are when you'd be working during a 9-5. So it's nearly impossible to actually utilize your tuition discount. There were a lot of budget cuts, and 3% bonuses were one of the first to go. Your base pay is usually underpaid because it's higher education/nonprofit, and the 3% raise is barely enough to cover the rise of cost of living. So now it's underpaid, bad or unusable benefits, and low morale because there were also so many layoffs with the rest of the employees having to do the work of multiple people. Systems in the university are antiquated and it takes forever for anything to get done and most of it is trial and error. They say there is mobility, but it's only lateral if you're lucky. I've been here for two years and there's been such high turnover in senior management including the President that everything feels up in the air.

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