Pros
Pros? The people. Not upper management -- but the people in the trenches. They're the people who make it worthwhile to come to work. The people who make it a little less painful to have spent five waking hours with your spouse in the past week. The people you laugh with and learn from -- and when you leave, the people you hope make it out sooner rather than later. (There's also free, secured parking, so you feel pretty safe going to the car, and it saves you $1200ish a year.)
Cons
Like many people, I've worked in food service. Like fewer people, I've also taught in an inner city school. So I thought I had safely put my worst jobs behind me. How wrong I was! If you've worked at alliantgroup for less than a year, this will ring false. "Opportunities are everywhere," you'll say. "This is a true meritocracy!" You'll talk about the parties at work, about the open and collaborative atmosphere, about how much everyone wants you to succeed. I know. I said those things too. Your first promotion comes within six months (that's the new model; at one time, you'd be there a year before you got promoted, but now they need warm bodies to take on new studies). It feels great. You get a raise, you're being rewarded for your good work, you believe in this firm and this cause. And then. You make a misstep. Or you don't. Your team director doesn't like you. Or management doesn't like your team director. You get promoted and then demoted. Or you're given flimsy reasons why you won't be promoted in the first place. And at some point, you will look at the 50+ studies you manage and wonder how you keep all those balls in the air. You will look at yourself in the mirror and wonder where those gray hairs, wrinkles, and extra pounds came from. You will look at your relationship and wonder how it has even held up under the stress. And you will look at your life and wonder if it was always this miserable. alliantgroup is a fine first job. It forces you to learn more than you thought was possible. You'll meet wonderful, smart, dedicated people. You'll make a real difference to the clients you serve. And then you'll see those smart, dedicated people walk out the door in anger and frustration and heartbreak. You'll see those clients go underserved because you don't have the time to dedicate to each one. You'll still learn -- but you'll learn how not to manage subordinates, how not to motivate, how not to run a company that makes people want to be there. You'll see passionate, smart people thrust into management roles with little experience and no real training, and you'll wonder why they don't know what they're doing. (Later, you'll understand exactly why.) You'll see people demoted publicly for no given reason. (You won't learn why.) You'll see yourself -- ranked with the other associates on an email blasted to the entire department, based on metrics that change by the week and don't correspond to reality. (You won't see senior associates and above, though. Those emails don't get blasted to everyone.) And eventually you'll leave, and maybe you won't have another job. Maybe you will have another job, and you'll lie about where you're going because you know the retribution will be harsh. Maybe you'll end up in the Big Four. Maybe you'll run into former alliantgroupers in your new life, and you'll feel an immediate kinship because you've survived the same war, if not at the same time. And then you'll laugh about how ridiculous those years were and remember how happy you are to be gone.