Nobody who is 24 and graduated college two years ago should be managing a 22-year-old who graduated college three months ago. The managers are extremely inexperienced and terrible when it comes to dealing with things you would expect your boss to be actually able to handle. The managers try to be fun and make jokes all day long with the associates on their team as if they are friends and equals rather than their superiors but then behind closed doors in weekly meetings, the atmosphere is very different. It's common for managers to blame associates for their account's poor performance despite much of it being pure luck. The managers' performance is entirely dependent on the performance of their associates so there is constant pressure put on them. The endless stress associated with this job is pushed down from the top all the way to the bottom.
The official hours are 50 a week but I don't know a single person who has come near to putting in that little time on any given week. This would be okay if the base salary justified how much time people are spending in the office but it doesn't really come close when you compare it to similar positions in New York. Especially when you consider how much money the firm is making when you sell even a single call. Further, there will be some weeks where no matter how hard you try or how much time you spend working, you simply will not sell many calls. This job is extremely dependent on your daily luck. Ultimately, you cannot control whether a random person who likely thinks you're trying to scam them will actually get on the phone with you. And if you do convince that random person to speak with you, and if they do actually end up being a great fit for your project, whether or not your client agrees to take a call with them is also reliant on luck.
The bottom line is this job is incredibly stressful largely because no matter how hard you work, some months just don't pan out for you. It is legitimately concerning how many people I had a coffee chat with who said they would or still do leave the office crying several nights a week. I get that any job you land right after college will be a difficult adjustment but AlphaSights really knows how to test the limits of their employees' mental health. The worst part is they don't seem very concerned.
