An in depth look at a day-to-day - Great Company but please make sure you know what you’ll actually be doing...
Pros
-Get to work with extremely intelligent and motivated people -Beautiful building - makes you feel proud -Amazing views -Great benefits -Pay is pretty good - especially for entry level -Like everyone else says, lunch is great and included every single day. All three meals are served during tax season -Young crowd. Average age seems to be late 20’s - Awesome if your post university -Lots of room to growth in the company -If you are a Project Associate you get paid overtime -Lots of training provided -Convenient parking garage connected to the building -Company gym -Fun little parties with food and and drinks every once in a while Be aware these pros and cons vary depending on the department in which you are involved. I am speaking specifically from the implementation side of the company. Before I left the company I did a lot of deeper networking within the company. I spoke with people across multiple teams, departments, existing employees, and employees that had left or that were terminated before they could leave. The places in the company where people seem happiest and where moral seems to be highest is in Human Resources and Customer Relations. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a disconnect between departments. They did not seem to fully grasp what our day-to-day looked like making it difficult to relate and rationalize expectations at times.
Cons
-The company is growing so fast things can get unclear - such as your duties and the workflow process -Repetitive template work -Not much opportunity to do deeper networking -Loss of moral as employee turn-over rate increases -Work hours are intense - I’m okay with that but the work can be draining -Seems to be a disconnect between some departments - do not seem to understand the others -Extremely competitive to the point where it seemed to make people have to be selfish with their careers -Heavily graded on your metrics not always on what you are actually doing for the team -Training is rushed and takes time out of your day making it difficult at times to meet metric goals and other milestones -Felt as if a real lunch break was looked down upon. Lunch is usually taken at your desk to continue working (I only took an hour lunch break once a month. My lunch breaks usually were 15 minutes long) This review is a bit long but I really want to provide some in-depth information I wish I would have had when I was presented to alliantgroup, LP (I hope this helps). -My Short Story: Felt very delayed in my growth because I was not given training until a month into my career, no matter how hard I pushed to get into classes. It is an odd thing but even though we were working hard and getting stuff done, it did not feel as if most of us felt as if we really knew what we were doing… or at least what we were doing in the grand scheme of things. What impact were we really making? Nonetheless, things start to clear up after about a month so keep your head up. However, you must be extremely proactive and push hard to gain an understanding. After seeing so much turnover, it started to feel as if the people around me and even myself were replaceable to the company. In my first couple months three people from my team alone had either left or were terminated because they wanted to leave. I had friends in other departments that I would stop seeing around and later found out they were no longer with the company. This made me sad. I also did not like how turnover was such a “hush hush” topic. People would talk about it quietly and wondered what happened and some worried if they would be next even though they were such great workers - not to mention amazing individuals. -Advice To Those Who Are Thinking About Working Here: You better be a type A individual or you will not last long here. If you are you will enjoy your time. In the past it was difficult for me to find a work environment with this many type A people like me. I liked this about alliantgroup. -Know What You Are About To Get Into: I had no idea what I was really getting into even though I did lots of research, asking other employees (make sure you ask those that are actually working in the department in which you will be working), and my interviewers. You deal with a really interesting yet grey area in the IRS code - maybe that is why you really do not understand what you will be doing until you are in deep. If you are interested in tax law and the Internal Revenue Code this will be a great place for you. I enjoy it to a certain degree but even though I told my interviewers who I was and what energized me and what did not, I do not feel as if it was considered or heard. - A Transparent Description of The General Day-to-Day As a Project Associate: The company was and is still going through a major restructuring of their workflow process to adjust for the explosive growth therefore, what you might be doing will always be changing. I was a Project Associate (PA) and was pushing hard to become an Associate (PM) and was getting close to reaching my goal of becoming a PM but just did not see myself at alliantgroup anymore. I found myself waiting for the day to end. That is not who I am and I want to enjoy my career. I do not want my career to start to feel like a job. If you are just getting out of university here is the university way of describing what you will be doing (these are not complaints. I was happy to do what needed to be done but you need to know what you will be doing. Every morning printing and color coding milestones and status updates for your Project Manager (an Associate), writing massive papers (however you have less flexibility or input into what you are writing since you must follow meticulous templates). You have to do a ton of digging through a bunch of files to try and find all of the information needed, which can take a massive amount of time. People were getting better at organizing this information and I took time out of my day to help organize files but, it was painful having to dig through other peoples files to try and write / “copy and paste” all of the notes and documentation into these reports. You will then need to take your papers to get “graded”. You will get your reports back with red ink, make the changes, and repeat until its good enough to take to the next “grader”. That will be your main task especially if you decide to go the Associate / PM route. If you go the Senior Project Associate route you will continue honing your skills on the more administrative tasks, such as setting up and managing Project Manager and or Team Director calendars, scheduling meetings, and drafting and sometimes sending emails for them. As a PA you will be involved in both areas mentioned. Again you will be able to chose your path. Doing all of these PA tasks really helps you learn the system of how things work at a micro level. Other activities include sitting in on calls with your PM(s) and taking notes on the conversations. You must make sure they are well written and well organized so that either you or your coworkers can write all the documentation later. (In the new workflow we are trying to write the documentation as we go so things are fresh and more time effective. However, this is not always realistic and you will have many tasks to juggle. This does keep things interesting). You will also prepare the agendas for all of the calls. Which means again, digging through a bunch of information that your PM pretty much knows of the top of his or her head and try and figure out the best way to fill out your template. You must also get really good at billing your time. You MUST keep track of what you do every second so you can bill it. If you do not, your metrics will drop and your advancement and overall reputation can quickly drop. You will attend training (typical education system / socrative style classes). You will have homework and have to take tests. This can make things stressful as it can make it difficult to keep up with your billing hours. If you are a PA you must meet or exceed the billing amount of hours with the amount of time you spent in the office (you clock in and clock out). For example, you will always work overtime so at least 10 hours a day, meaning you have to bill at a minimum of 10 hours to a client or clients. If not you will get emails from those watching your metrics. The training sessions are rushed and take one to one and a half hours. So be sure to find a lot to do to make up for that lost time. This makes it difficult to apply your full attention to class. However, you will get the hang of this process after about three weeks to a month if you work hard. If you are an Associate, your work will be similar. You will have an added pressure on your metrics. You will still be writing the documentation discussed above however, you will also be grading others work now and be graded on how well you graded the work. You will be making calls now - which can be pretty cool however can feel rushed.I love to talk with people and really get to know them but you need to be effective with your time and extract the necessary information efficiently. You will no longer have to do the more micro tasks that a PA does and work more on speaking with clients and conducting calculations using excel. If you do not mind this kind of work and environment you will be a great fit. To this day I am still excited by the tax credit we work with and what it can do for an organization. Even though I no longer work at AG I still tell people about the credit and tell them about alliantgroup because I have seen how the treat their customers…they treat them very well.
