ZS Associates reviews

3.5

62% would recommend to a friend

(9,870 total reviews)
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Pratap Khedkar

76% approve of CEO

64% positive business outlook

ZS Associates has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 9,870 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The ZS Associates employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

10K reviews
2.0
Sep 11, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Compensation is good, though it has fallen behind the compensation for top consulting firms in most recent years by ~10-15K - Colleagues are genuine experts, good exposure and management experience across time zones, cultures, clients

Cons

- The company presents itself as a consulting firm that provides varied project exposure, but pushes employees to "develop expertise" by doing the same types of work repeatedly to the point that it's no longer interesting - Limited opportunities for exposure to other projects, with principals getting defensive and territorial when you ask to explore other projects or teams - Highly variable quality of life and experience based on the principals / office / team / client / project, none of which the employees have control over - Culture of delivery above all; expectations are that you are responsive into the late evening and/or early morning to manage within the offshore / fractional staffing model - Verbally abusive / demeaning management can be broadly acknowledged but never acted on by company leadership or HR

2.0
Jun 18, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great company to start at with a decent salary and plenty of smart people. You will work for mainly big pharma and biotech clients. Starting salary is livable and okay, but, you will have to work at one of the CLIENT sites, not out of the ZS Evanston office. So, plan your commute and move accordingly.

Cons

As stated in the headline: bad office politics / gossipy culture. This is a small company and favoritism runs rampant. There is less of a focus on competency and more of a focus on tenure. The average promotion time between levels is ~2 years. People can be quite passive aggressive; know how to play political games, and most importantly: be a gray rock. ZSers are very competitive, don't let the company values fool you. When it comes to 'tenured' people (non-new hires who have been there for over a year): If you outperform somebody, tread carefully. If somebody messes up or throws you under the bus, you absolutely cannot flame them. Know how, when, and to whom to escalate project matters to This is a small culture that protects its cadre of favorites. If you are working with a favorite, take some hits to the chin and try to move off the project. Competence does not outweigh politics here to an extreme. At my previous place of employment, there were politics, but not this many 'implicit rules'. This is a lesson I've learned the hard way. Don't be me and you can succeed at ZS. Takeaway: given the toxic culture of favoritism and 2-year tenure, I recommend using your time at ZS for work experience gain to move onto a better place of employment with more unbiased reviews and more focus on results/competence.

2.0
Jun 11, 2019

ZS lacks empathy!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A lot of technologies to learn. Awesome place for starters!

Cons

-No workalike balance -Biased environment -LACKS EMPATHY. -CIG people are getting less pay for no reason.

Viewing 58 - 60 of 9,870 Reviews

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