AlphaSights actually cares (as long as you hit the bottom line).
Pros
- AlphaSights does a phenomenal job of recruiting exceptionally bright, driven, and ambitious post-grads. Finding a supportive, collegial work environment after graduation is rare, and I'm lucky enough to have forged strong (and long-lasting) friendships with many other analysts. - Free breakfast/snacks, beer on tap in the office, subsidized vending machines, and fun monthly and quarterly events, and the lunch program is satisfactory (albeit a bit pricey). - You will have the opportunity to speak with a range of industry experts and senior executives in a range of different industries.
Cons
- Upper management is, for lack of a better word, very shady. There is, for instance, the "performance-based" bonus scheme, which supposedly measures each analyst's level of performance at the job. During analyst training, management repeatedly refers to this bonus scheme as a "goal" and a "hurdle," implying that it is something to aim for and eventually reach. In reality, the "goal" is a quota, and if you do not reach your monthly quota, you will be let go (often without any notice). That is all to say - there is very little transparency when it comes to the bonus structure, promotion, and the performance evaluation (see below). - The performance evaluation is incredibly arbitrary, and the only true evaluation standard is if you meet the aforementioned quota. If you meet and/or exceed that quota, chances are your performance will be characterized as "meets expectations" or "above expectations." If you don't meet that quota, your performance is almost always "below expectations." There is not much stock or consideration given to your other contributions to the company. - One of AlphaSights' core values is "we actually care." In reality, they only actually care about your well-being as an employee if you consistently hit their bottom line. Otherwise, you will be let go. While it is important that employees meet the bottom line and perform well in any job, AlphaSights' business model makes it very hard to plan out your days or anticipate if you're going to hit that bottom line, despite how hard you work. Because there are so many factors that play into the job itself, often projects or entire accounts will stagnate for spans of time, but upper management does not take this into consideration when determining the bottom line. - With that said, most of the remaining employees (middle management included) have completely lost faith in upper management, and many employees are actively looking for other opportunities; even those who were once very happy at AlphaSights have become distrustful and disillusioned. Employees live in perpetual fear of being let go without any prior notice. Upper management knows this, and instead of addressing it, they do everything in their power to maintain this atmosphere by continuing to let people go or by forcing them to leave. - Hours are very long, with most employees working at least 11 hours/day + weekends, and depending on the account that you're on, you could be consistently working 13-hour days + weekends. You're expected to constantly be "on," which might be a reasonable expectation if most people weren't already working from 8am-8/9pm. Beyond that, there's a culture of stress that permeates the company. Most employees are constantly worried about meeting their monthly quota (or worried about being let go if they don't meet that quota, even for one month), and this wreaks havoc on everyone's work-life balance and well-being at the company. - The actual job function of an analyst is incredibly repetitive and consists of three things: looking up people on LinkedIn, cold-calling those people (or calling individuals who are in AlphaSights' internal database), and scheduling calls for clients. As an analyst, you will spend approximately 60-80% of your day on the phone. It requires zero analysis or critical thinking. On the plus side, you will become exceptionally good at speaking on the phone with random people and you will become good at handling tricky topics (negotiating compensation or talking about industries that you research during your phone conversation, for example). - There's not much variation in job function, even after you're promoted. For the most part, what you do as an Analyst at 3 months will be the same as what you will be doing as a Lead Analyst at 20 months. - Awful benefits package: individuals who aren't still on their parents'/guardians' insurance must pay a ridiculous amount of money for health insurance, and retirement contributions are paltry (and only offered after ~6 months at the company). Many of their advertised health benefits (i.e. "subsidized gym memberships") are subpar. - AlphaSights is incredibly successful at recruiting bright, driven, ambitious individuals from top schools (kudos to them). However, when those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed graduates arrive--eager to work at a company that has branded themselves as a frontrunner in the "knowledge economy,"--the company does nothing to adequately support them, stimulate them, or invest in their development. The company does not care much about your personal growth or skill development unless you--you guessed it!--hit the bottom line.
