Merck reviews

4.1

83% would recommend to a friend

(6,146 total reviews)
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Rob Davis

82% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Merck has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 6,146 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Merck employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Farmacéutica y biotecnología industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

6K reviews
1.0
May 25, 2025

Toxic managers rewarded

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good salary Good flexibility since Covid

Cons

Toxic management. Senior leadership want to be worshiped so they ignore all the concerns raised by the employees and case of bullying by their managers. They lean too much onto office politics than efficiency and performance. Hard work and great performance doesn’t matter at MERCK. This company has a serious issue with toxic management being protected and even rewarded. One manager in particular has driven out multiple talented employees, yet leadership continues to ignore the pattern. Feedback is dismissed, retaliation is real, and opportunities are blocked unless you’re in the manager’s good graces. Concerns have been raised directly and through pulse surveys, but these efforts go nowhere. The surveys are widely seen as performative — a box to check rather than a tool for real change. Employees have learned that raising issues often leads to backlash or being pushed out. Speaking up is a trap. If you come to this company, Double down on any psychotherapy because you will need it. The managers will bully and discriminate against employees with the full protection of HR and senior management. If the employee raises the concerns to senior management or HR, they become the problem and manager with support of senior management will continue their worse. The employee become the target to put down by any mean. The narrative is controlled by those in power.

2.0
Apr 17, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good salary, bonus, benefits. Most people are respectful.

Cons

Hazing - I was 'asked' to print out a 3000 page document and review numbers line-by-line manually by a long-term Merck Employee who was not even in Statistical Programming. I refused, citing that company policy (SOP) states that verification should be done by machine reading. My manager did not back me up on this as she had only 5 years with the company and still feels like an outsider. I was thrown under the bus for insubordination and fired.

4.0
Jul 6, 2023

Great, but old school company

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Merck has a collaborative environment with some of the smartest and most skilled people out there. The only problem is that those people all know (or think) that they are the smartest and skilled people out there, so there can be some arrogance at times. Generally though, Merck teams are great; but the hierarchy is fierce and some people take titles very seriously, and advancing is tough - but once you get there, you've made it. The work is very rewarding and of all the pharma companies out there (and I have worked for severa) Merck truly means it when they say they put patients first!

Cons

Old school policies around WFH for many departments. The culture is one of an old school pharma company; so as much as they try to make things hip, don't expect much of that. Oh and get ready for tons of meetings - so many that you may find it difficult to get any work done.

Viewing 10 - 12 of 6,146 Reviews

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