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      AlphaSights

      Engaged Employer

      AlphaSights CST Associate reviews

      2.3

      0% would recommend to a friend

      (11 total reviews)
      avatar

      Max Cartellieri

      16% approve of CEO

      1% positive business outlook

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      Reviews by job title

      11 reviews
      3.0
      Sep 20, 2022

      Solid but a bad industry

      Cst
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Good first job out of college with clear career progression. The people are great to work with and the office is fun. Commission while difficult on slower months is achievable if you put in the hours needed to do so. (55 hrs is a realistic work week)

      Cons

      Expert Networks are a tough and honestly unpleasant industry to work in. Hyper competitive both internally and amongst competitions, ludicrous requests from clients on unrealistic timelines, and management internally that encourages borderline harassment of the experts within the network. These things all come together to make the overall industry just a pain to work in. They use a lot of buzzwords aka Knowledge economy to make you feel like you are doing some amazing thing for the world where in reality, you work at a call center to find ways to convince industry professionals to take time out of their day to help your clients when there is no guarantee they will get picked for the project or canceled on 5 minutes before a call is meant to take place.

      avatar
      AlphaSights Response
      3y
      We appreciate you sharing your thoughts. We're upfront that we work in a high-expectations environment, where we consistently commit ourselves to providing our clients with the best possible service. Our clients value knowing that we're dedicated to supporting them throughout their knowledge search process. As we continue to automate and enhance our systems to best support our associates and clients, we encourage you to share this feedback with your manager and our Engineering team. Thanks for all of your continued hard work. - The AlphaSights Team
      3.0
      Jan 13, 2022

      Fast Paced Intro to Consulting

      Cst associate
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      - is the back office of consulting so a lot of exposure to different industries - fast paced - good camaraderie with colleagues - good bonus structure - works with big clients to exposure to a good network

      Cons

      - overwhelming amount of work - not particularly interesting - sales structure with a quota

      3.0
      Oct 22, 2021

      Solid first postgrad job - then get out

      Cst associate
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      - They generally hire very well so you will be surrounded by smart, competent, and interesting people - You will learn how to sound professional on the phone with clients and will gain confidence speaking up in intimidating situations - Lots of face time with clients within your first 9-24 months in the associate role, including client lunches and regular phone calls, providing opportunities to network with top investment and consulting firms - Big focus on social events and material perks, including monthly team events (rooftop bars, workout classes, nice dinners, etc), huge holiday parties that have a college party feel, a very nice office kitchen fully stocked with great snacks, and a pretty generous subsidized lunch program - They have a big problem with retention, and consequently are extremely motivated to entice high-performing associates to stick around for the manager role. If you use this to your advantage as a second year associate, you can have a high degree of control over what segment you will be placed on as manager - There is a very pervasive "pay your dues"/"earn your stripes" mentality, so you have to grind HARD as a first year associate to prove yourself, but as you move into your second year you have a lot more leeway (as long as your manager is reasonable) - If you are willing to put in the work you can make a lot of money because of the performance pay structure. Especially as a second year associate, if you are strategic you will learn how to maximize efficiency and make as much money with as little effort as possible - If you have a genuine passion for client relations and account management, your second year will be much more interesting than your first

      Cons

      - The actual job is incredibly dull and monotonous, in my opinion - Clients can be incredibly rude and thoughtless. Many of them are working under immense pressure themselves and are required to take a certain number of expert calls by a certain date, which often leads to very short-notice, high urgency asks that can be nearly impossible to deliver on - Performance pay is structured such that you do not receive any performance pay until a call is completed. This means that if a client cancels a call at the last minute, you do not receive any bonus compensation for all the work you put in to arrange the call. There are many situations in which you will spend several hours working to satisfy a client's request and then something changes on their end and they no longer want to buy that call - Many clients do not respect the work that expert network services do, and act superior to you in a noticeable manner - In the first 6-8 months of the job, you will be very stressed and overworked, because the role takes a while to grasp and as a result you will be very inefficient at first. For my first six months I consistently worked 55-60 hour weeks. These were intense hours with no time for mid-day walks or lunch breaks - There are so many factors outside of your control that affect your performance pay, including either side (client or expert) canceling the call, unpredictable demand, over or under staffing, etc. - You learn a lot in the first year to 18 months about professionalism, organization, efficiency, and account management, but it seems to me that staying with the company longer than that would ultimately not be fulfilling or enriching

      Viewing 7 - 9 of 11 Reviews
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