Pros
Decent salary. Easy to move from one department to another - lots of opportunities within the company overall, with varied career paths. Overall line management tries to be friendly, supportive and appears interested in your well being.
Cons
Large CRO means you are one of many and your voice and experience and contributions are not as important; you easily get lost in the milieu of everyone trying to get ahead and trying to have their voice heard. In the process, there is significant 'throwing others under the bus' and climbing over others/taking others work as your own, etc........this is how many are able to move ahead in this environment. You have to fight for yourself, but do it with political prowess. If you are not politically savvy and are not good and tooting your own horn, then you will not go as far in this company as others who *are* good at tooting their own horn (those who are good at fighting for themselves and making themselves seen). Backstabbing is viral at PPD. Their mantra is "One PPD" but in some departments, behind the management curtain, they do not follow their own mission statement. There is a "herd" mentality. Very inflexible with respect to conducting clinical research. There is talk of supporting critical thinking and creative initiative, but the actions speak louder than the words - and in reality they are very much *inside* the box rather than being creative or creating a creative-mind environment. For example: the SOPs are way too stringent and do not fit all situations, but the administrative burden PPD creates having to follow, document deviations and training, etc, etc for SOPs that don't make sense to begin with, is ludicrous. The company is very silo'd and in the process the departments don't have the robust experiences and knowledge on how to do things differently, how to "think outside the box". If you are a critical thinker, with a creative mind and like to be inventive and take initiative for change, this is NOT the place to work.
