This is not a research role - as an Associate you cold-call people on LinkedIn all day, and as a Client Associate you send repeated lists to clients. The job is incredibly repetitive and boring, it is essentially mis-sold as a research role. In the interview you are given value chain research, I do not know one person who has ever used this in their day-to-day.
Active and independent thought is actively discouraged. You are expected to follow the exact same format for emails, and to effectively be 'cookie cutters' of each other - this role could be entirely automated and I'm not sure why they don't do this, it would be much cheaper and efficient.
You are expected to respond to clients within 10 minutes at all hours of the day and night, despite working hours being 9-6. If you do not reply within this time, expect to receive group Slack messages on why you didn't do this, and for someone else to reply for you. In group presentations it will be praised that clients think we never sleep. There should be shifts where 24/7 responses are expected.
There is a toxic culture of micromanagement. Promotions are given to who has been there the longest, and despite the company spending significant time drafting its employee journey, they have made it impossible for people to get promoted. Most managers are around 24/25 and have been promoted solely for being there the longest. They do not care about welfare, and value client delivery over everything.
The new bonus scheme has left everyone significantly worse off. The company has tried to pretend that the qualitative side is as important as the quantitative, but if you do not hit your quantitative targets, you will be placed on performance review. The connections teams make up the majority of the revenue, and yet are not appropriately rewarded for this work whatsoever.
Senior leadership are extremely out of touch, and handled the Covid-19 crisis appallingly with surprise firings and mis-management.
Honestly, if you value your pride, sanity and mental health - I would avoid this place at all costs. It is clear which reviews below are planted, and which are not.
