GLG reviews

2.6

24% would recommend to a friend

(2,254 total reviews)
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Gemma Postlethwaite

21% approve of CEO

18% positive business outlook

GLG has an employee rating of 2.6 out of 5 stars, based on 2,254 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The GLG employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Administración y consultoría industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
Jan 11, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Worked at GLG for nearly 2 years, coffee and office is nice. Austin is a great city. They try to make the mundane, high-stress work and culture better with food and bevs about once a week.

Cons

Where should I start? 1.) The work is not stimulating, you don't learn anything, it's very administrative. The title and the department has "Research" in the name but you are not doing ANY research here. They are trying to move away from the research title now but don't think you'll be using any type of quantitative skills or completing multi-day research projects. If you liked research in school or like to work on things over an extended period of time steer clear. 2.) The sales culture here is awful and borderline unethical. You will be asked to sell and upsell phone calls and other research anywhere you can. You will call analysts and try to sell them meetings they don't need and they don't know how much they cost. I genuinely don't believe GLG's clients understand the massive amount of money they pay for the services and GLG won't go out of their way to tell them. The company just views clients as deep pockets. 3.) Management is some of the worst in the country for a company of this size. There are two types of people that work there. The ones who hate working there and are looking for a way out (probably about half the company), and the ones that are strong individual contributors and develop and "I'm better than you attitude" (The other half of the company). You have managers with no experience outside of college that worked their way up by doing meaningless work with a healthy amount of brown nosing. Because of this you won't find any mentors with substance here or anyone with connections to help you in the future. 4.) Working culture is just as bad as sales culture. Very, very few people actually care about the work they do here. Instead they care about getting ahead and working their way to the next rung in the ladder. This fosters a very poor culture of day-to-day distaste in the work while the ones that are there for the long-haul are only there for the position of "leadership" and power. GLG brands itself as a learning company but none of their employees actually learn, pretty ironic. 5.) Work life balance is non existent. You receive about 400+ emails a day that you're expected to respond to within about 10 minutes. If you're not at your desk at any point in the day upper management starts to suspect you're slipping and will put you on a leash. People brag about answering emails at 1am and nobody can go to a meeting without checking their phone or laptop every 30 seconds.

1.0
Oct 17, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good social atmosphere, some people have impressive educational backgrounds

Cons

I worked with GLG for just under 18 months and I must say that at least 16 of those months were abysmal. If you are considering an offer with GLG, please take some time to read the reviews and I have first hand been part of the discussion where internal 'good' reviews of GLG were posted in order to boost Glassdoor ratings from internal employers so please read the good ones with a pinch of salt. I was part of the London Life Sciences team and I have never seen such a poorly run department. The management team are absolutely shocking. Issues ranging from unnecessary team meetings, intense micro management and above all, a huge sense of self importance. Life sciences is a completely redundant part of the GLG business model. The majority of pharmaceutical clients are able to obtain the insight they need, often for free, in a much quicker manner than GLG can provide. They are slow, weak and unqualified on current healthcare issues, especially in the pharmaceutical space. I was personally extremely undermined, despite being one of the most qualified members of the team both academically and within pharmaceuticals. Having now moved on to a large pharmaceutical business who do not (and will not) use GLG, I can safely say that GLG is extremely poor not only in life sciences but in their services as a whole

1.0
Apr 18, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free coffee, decent pay, cool office space. My manager was genuinely a nice person.

Cons

Where do I even start? First of all, jobs are not advertised for what they truly are. I've been out of this place for a while now but, when I started with the company, I was convinced I would be in a "research" position, doing "research" work. What you truly do, however, when you join the company, is working as call center operator or, to put it nicely, as a recruiter (although this does not do justice to the job actual recruiters do). It's hard to say if their recruiting strategy is to use such fancy titles to lure students from big-name universities to work for them so GLG can look like an attractive place to work, or if they simply are clueless about what research means. When I asked my interviewers what the average day at GLG looked like, they all provided descriptions that did not end up matching my day-to-day tasks. Instead, they used vague vocabulary such as "research", "projects", "client service". In fact, you basically scroll through LinkedIn trying to find senior and accomplished professionals that can block an hour off their schedule to MAYBE talk to your client (who is actually the client of some senior associate upstairs), if the client doesn't drop the "project" altogether. Here it is, in two lines. Why try to be fancy during interviews? Why try to recruit from great schools, when this is a job anyone with a high-school degree could do? Second, let's talk about GLG's metrics, defined by leadership (supposedly) through an algorithm that has never been shown to anyone. Metrics are a good thing, they are supposed to motivate employees, to keep them accountable and to allow for transparent career progression. Provided they make sense. Their metrics are purely quantitative (and quantitatively, they don't make sense). Management lets you know that there are also a number of qualitative metrics that are relevant to career progression. Truth is, they don't matter. As a result, in most cases, managers have no managerial skills and can barely communicate clearly with junior associates. Still, they can sell GLG very well over the phone and find ways to get in contact with strangers. This is emblematic of GLG's priorities. To sum it all up, at GLG you will learn how to look someone up on LinkedIn, how to find people's emails and phone numbers, to reply to emails at any time of the day (which is okay, but for a much different salary), to drink a lot of coffee, and to never question leadership's metrics. You will not become knowledgeable about the industries clients are looking to invest in. Some managers may acquire managerial skills, but that is entirely up to them and their sense of responsibility. There is absolutely NO knowledge or learning involved at GLG. Advice: if you have just graduated from college and have ANY type of passion, for ANY subject or topic in the world, don't take shortcuts. Don't go for the shiny pay and fancy title. Go work for someone who can get you into the industry you actually like, even if they can't pay you as much as GLG does. If you want to become a recruiter, this might be the right job for you.

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GLG Response
7y
We hear your concerns and only wish you’d have brought them up sooner. We believe wholeheartedly that GLG is a great place to work – though not without some growing pains. In the time since you left, we’ve worked hard to improve the overall employee experience. And we’re confident our (now) more than 2,000 employees are already seeing results. The role you had, for instance, is no longer called “Research.” Instead, now “Client Solutions.” We heard feedback from GLGers like you, and we are in the process of restructuring – and adjusting expectations – to better reflect what the jobs now entails. Client Service Associates (CSAs) are the engine of GLG. They focus on recruiting new experts into our industry-leading network while learning the skills needed to be effective client service professionals. Associates often become Senior Associates, where they work to understand client needs and help them answer their most pressing business challenges. Our CSAs are strong communicators, from all majors, with diverse personal, academic, and professional backgrounds. They can move into roles in which they manage teams and there are others in which they can contribute individually. We also offer a mobility program that lets GLG employees transfer across roles, offices, and even entire regions. Career progression depends on many performance factors. Metrics are a barometer for our business, but they are by no means the measure of success here. We’re working every day to improve how we gauge induvial performance in the fairest and most transparent way possible. Metrics should never get in the way of seeing the complete person. We’re so sorry it didn’t work out for you here but wish you success in your new role.
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