ICF reviews

Some of the technologies that we used in ICF were outdated for the scope of the projects that were being done. As expected within a consulting role, some clients were difficult to work with and provided very little support for their projects. For such a large company that prides itself on professional development, there was not enough support for professional development or certain opportunities were not shared well. A number of the management staff were not accountable to employees and it showed. There is a lot to be said about transparency as well. Some of the management staff tried to appear as if they were buddies with the consultants, however certain messages were selectively shared within teams and there seemed to be a hidden agenda in many cases. I witnessed overt favoritism and learned from other colleagues about opportunities that were not fairly shared with other consultants. Many colleagues of mine got promotions through endlessly kissing butt and not through their work quality. The benefits were average and the health insurance options were costly.

In my many years of having a job, I have never worked for a company that treated their employees so heartlessly. I worked in the SR group, and was recently let go without any warning or notice. This came after I had daily meetings with my project manager to go over my tasks. The project manager determined that I was moving along well, that I was improving, and decreased my check-in meetings to about 3 times a week. The next week, I was let go and given a 2 week severance. No one tried to assist me with finding additional project work within ICF. Project managers at this company are allowed to run projects inefficiently while the team members take the blame for their mis-management. Project managers are also allowed to speak down to their team members in ways that do not foster a good working environment. For example, I was told by my Project Manager that I was not a good writer and I was not an analytical thinker. I am at the dissertation phase of my PhD program. There is no possible way that these aforementioned characteristics could apply to me. One cannot get accepted into a PhD program, and get through years of PhD coursework without having analytical or writing skills. I also was not given specific instructions on how to improve my 'non-writing and non-analytical' skills. I also found this feedback to be shocking when I had sent several reports to the client--all of which had to be reviewed the Project Manager before being sent off. In addition, I was told to NEVER tell the client that I was pursuing my PhD. I was not going to tell the client that I was pursuing my PhD, so I am not even sure why this came up in a discussion with the Project Manager. I was told several times by the Project Manager that the client did not care that I was pursuing a PhD so I should NEVER mention it. You do NOT want to work for this heartless company that continues to reward senior level staff who do the things that the ethics training videos you are forced to watch during orientation tell you NOT to do.