After rough patch, smooth sailing ahead, noticeable improvements
Pros
AlphaSights has a winning value proposition that clients love. The company is growing very quickly and there are opportunities for people who are willing to work hard and move the team and firm forward. The company’s core offering has made it the second largest player in the market behind GLG and the company has a clear vision of becoming #1 in the industry. As the world moves to a sharing based economy, there is no question that companies like AlphaSights will be will positioned to grow in the coming years. The company is run by two former management consultants who met at Stanford business school and have a history of starting and running successful companies. Despite the previous reviews on this thread, in my experience the VPs & CEOs at AlphaSights are more agile, caring, inquisitive and dedicated than people twice their age at other companies. What they lack in experience they more than make up for in enthusiasm and commitment to their teams. Experienced hires can find the ignorance of direct hires from undergrad frustrating (Examples: Why are there only six flavors of cereal? Why was I not promoted in a year?) The sense of entitlement can be astounding. I was nervous about moving to a high growth company that was smaller than my old company, but have been happy with my choice overall and think most experienced hires can thrive at AS in the right role. If you are interested in a role that does a lot of analytical work (especially with spreadsheets), AS is probably not for you. But for people that are hungry, excited to learn about the business world and have a strong commercial mindset and good hustle, AlphaSights is a great place to cut your teeth right out of school with transferable business skills after having exposure to a bunch of different areas. It’s a particularly good place for liberal arts grads to get marketable business skills while gaining great exposure to the business world. The company emphasizes learning by doing and everyone (across all offices globally) are incredibly fun and smart which makes coming to work every day more enjoyable. For the work and industry, compensation is fair (one of the changes made recently) and AS employees are going on to Ivy league business schools and other top tier options.
Cons
The company is a victim of its own success. As the company’s growth exploded, the infrastructure to support surging client demand took a backseat to client requests. Any company that grows from 4 people to 300 in such a short time span is going to have its growing pains. I’ve seen a major shift from it being a “start up” (blow out parties, unclear career path) to a professional services company (redefined org structure, career path options, less of a boiler room type environment). Weekend work is generally non-existent but client requests can be demanding and the “always on” mind set starts to wear on you after a couple of years of long days (usually 8 AM – 7PM, but these are improving for some teams as leadership owns that the company accepts it is not a consulting firm or investment bank). The leadership team knows this is an issue and have been working aggressively for the company to be a place good employees want to be. There are still internal issues the company is addressing but the most recent changes since one of the CEOs relocated to New York have been noticeable and impactful (redesigned org structure, revised comp plan, agile performance reviews, elimination of ambiguous firings, updated office, less of a face time culture etc…). That said, there is still work to be done and the VPs, managers and CEOs would all be the first ones to admit it and are always ready to listen to ideas to help make the company better. Criticism with no productive ideas is frowned upon (rightfully so). Overall, the rate of growth of the organization and opportunities that are available for hard workers offset any drawbacks in my opinion. There are other issues that could be discussed at length (wrong hires in previous years, ineffective onboarding for experienced hires, dismissals gone wrong, lack of career path, wrong talent story, etc…) but the major problems are in the rear view mirror and the company has a promising future. Incoming classes have been hired under a different lens and should drive the company forward into an exciting new chapter.
