Gartner reviews

The HR representative I dealt with was absolutely terrible. I have never had to deal with a more manipulative person. The HR rep interviewed me first, and suggested I interview at the higher level given my industry experience. I interviewed for Senior Specialist, and all the rounds of interviews went really well. One of the VPs I met with interviewed me, and we got on well. However, he made several mistakes on categorizing fixed and variable costs during the interview, and I corrected him to bring clarity to the interview. He thanked me for it, and said this is the kind of people they want at Gartner. Then HR calls and says he recommended me for the lower position, because in his words "people who start lower at Gartner do better". What a bogus explanation, and what a convenient way to exploit employees who are overqualified for a job. When I got extended the offer, I tried to negotiate on the salary, which was miserably low, btw for the area (67K), and I mentioned that I have industry experience and should not be starting on the same level as someone out of college. The HR person had no idea that I had work experience, even though it was explicitly discussed with her during many interviews, and with the hiring team, and was on my resume. She represented me as someone out of college to the hiring team. No wonder they wanted to place me in the Specialist role! They thought I had no experience. After figuring out the miscommunication, the HR person said that they will talk to the manager. Gets back to me a week later, saying the management decided they would be OK with me working in the Senior role, at a higher salary, as long it is in the practice where i have experience. Great! I moved to the new city, as they said that they will contact me regarding teams and openings soon. (btw no relocation bonus, or singing bonus, or any kind of bonus, and pretty bad health benefits ). 2 months go by. I call them, they say there is only the Specialist opening (even though LinkedIn and their website shows recent postings for Senior Specialist roles). Then, the next week the HR person calls and says they will hire me, and start me out on a team of 7 analysts in the Senior position. All I had to do is have one last fit call with a VP, even though I already had a fit call. Great! I accepted the arrangement. They schedule the call with the VP. One week later, they call me and say the VP has declined my call because she talked to the guy who interviewed me first who made the decision based on misinformation about my background. Back to square one. I ask about the lower role that was available. Well, it was closed or "on hold", so was not an option anymore, and it was "unclear when and whether there will be openings soon, but we will reach out as soon as something comes up". I reach out to the VP and ask her to speak with me. She agrees (reluctantly). We have our call, I explain to her the situation, and she says she is uncomfortable discussing this issue with me, and that she thought we were going to have a fit call, so was not prepared to talk about my problem. She promised to do "some digging" and get back to me with answers THAT WEEK. The next few days I get called, and they say that the complexity of my case made the team decide not to hire me after all. So I suffered because the HR contact was incompetent, lied about talking to the management, and did not communicate properly with either them or me. After 3 months of waiting, after 5 interviews, after a written offer WAS extended to me NOT for the position for which I interviewed, all of a sudden I was not a good fit for them. Terrible, incompetent HR.

Working for Gartner was great when I started about 5 years ago, but the company has gone down-hill since then. Even management and tenured analysts are unhappy with how the company has changed, with their focus more on meeting random and absurd metrics rather than the quality of work or the relationship with customers / clients. Pay increases have been abysmal. Despite scoring within the top 20% of employees on annual evaluations for the last 3 years, I've only received an annual raise of about 1.5% each year -- Not even enough to keep up with inflation. Despite posting double-digit growth and record profits for the past several years, they recently announced that they are taking away other compensation benefits for their employees. Bonuses have been reduced, and now they no longer reimburse internet expenses for at-home employees -- Effectively removing $1K a year from my compensation. When I complained to management, they told me it's all about turnover -- if you don't like it, you can find a good job. Clearly, maintaining top-level talent is not a priority in their current management paradigm.