Pros
Reading some reviews here and I'm sorry, but a lot of it is unfair and exaggerated. Not everyone has the most incredible time, but I will try to be as true as I can. You progress quickly if you do well. Reading some reviews here, it is untrue to suggest this is not the case or unrealistic. The majority of people get promoted with a 20% salary bump around 6 months mark and someone was just promoted in 4 months. You then get to deal with clients who are not easy but will make you excellent at dealing with challenging, complex and high value projects. Those who don't may have struggled, but managers here are genuinely focused on getting their teams promoted and improve. Salary : you make 50-60K within 2 years of being hired as an Associate and it goes up after... they give you a presentation on salary increases within your first 5 years so you know what you'll get which is good. You don't get rewarded like sales roles, but you're not under the same pressure or risk. Other benefit : admittedly can do better, but you do get good health insurance (not dental though), mobile paid for, pension contribution, beers on Friday. If you're among the top teams every 3 months you get to go on sponsored nights out with your team, apart from the other events, lunches brought in every week or two, dinners and nights out. The business is doing well - it's grown a lot, more teams are being made and they are usually small so you get to know everyone and work together, some getting to 10 which is too much though. You hear a lot about progress from the new CEO... I never met the old one and didnt get the idea he knew anything about Dublin, the new one has visited twice in 6 months and sat with everyone. If you do it right, you can build a network of serious contacts and speak with industry leaders: unfortunately some people dont take advantage of this but its taught me a lot. The people : so many people are welcoming and help you learn. There's a great community and friendships mean a lot. When people do leave, all they talk about is how important it was to make friends with people here and it really is such a good part of it. Searsons : it's across the road, it's a culture in this office. Might be why so many people are good friends :) HR - the local HR person here is indispensable. She gives a lot of advice and supports everyone.
Cons
The career path is geared towards becoming a manager. The new CEO is working on making roles closer towards relationship managers/customer success and he seems sharp but he's new so time will tell. Sometimes the work that you do doesn't get fully recognized for example you can work on harder projects and the results can be lower, but the amount of effort can be the same or more and this needs to be properly recognized. Projects are not easy.. this isn't exactly a con, but if you want to work at a slow pace with consistent rhythm, this is likely not for you. If you like fast pace, projects that have multiple solutions, looking at new projects on a daily basis, this is more your place. They also need to figure out how different markets are DIFFERENT. So many companies know that Germany is not Russia, Sweden is not Italy, Europe is not USA. They are paying more attention to this and finally taking it serious, but its important to get it right. Benefits could be better. The revenue structure is good because you know what you can get, but it can mean you know your limit. You also get a great increase in your first couple of years but team managers only seem to do well if the business does well, and you can earn more as a research manager who does well on their own. Once they become senior managers they earn a lot more, but there needs to be balance.
