If You Find Yourself at AS, Don't Work Here More than a Year
Pros
They hire phenomenal people and you get to build great friendships with many of your colleagues. They also have some high quality exit opportunities if you are interested in sales roles, customer success roles, and PE roles. Pay is ~okay~ although it should be a higher base salary in SF based on the hours we work. Managers, at times, can be great. I was lucky enough to have a phenomenal manager and team making it a bit more bearable to spend the time I spent at AlphaSights. Company summer and holiday parties are a good time too.
Cons
Management and leadership do not take any feedback seriously - they either ignore it entirely, brush it off, or passively gaslight you into thinking you're wrong. The hours are, AT A MINIMUM, 8-6pm but the reality is 60+ hour weeks as you are expected to be available to work and respond to client emails at all hours. The company prides itself on giving all employees 'complete autonomy' in their work and days yet consistently promotes a culture of micromanagement from the moment you start working there. They do not hire externally for any position above Associate meaning that all high-level employees and execs are brought up through the same system and have minimal variation in beliefs on how to properly run a company. This results in very little company change, very little action on employee feedback, and fewer culture improvements. Many managers themselves are frustrated with/don't like the company and leadership is doing very little to improve retention and refuses to address core problems leading to people leaving. The work itself is monotonous. You spend most of your day 'delivering,' essentially calling up and emailing experts, vetting them, and writing up their profile. While these experts do often have interesting backgrounds, they rarely have interest in talking with associates given that the vetting calls are unpaid on their end. If you stay longer than 6-9 months, you'll get to 'project lead.' This experience does vary extensively based on who your client(s) are as some are certainly better/easier to work with than others. There is minimal 'market research' done and you receive almost ZERO technical skills (if you'd consider a strong knowledge of LI Sales Navigator a technical skill). All in all, I don't think working for this company is worth it. If you want to pursue the sales route, you're better off building these skills through a traditional BDR/SDR role. If you want to go the PE route, you're better off applying to PE funds directly, going into banking first, or going into consulting first. If you want to go into customer success, AlphaSights is a good company for that although most former employees that have jumped over to CS have stayed til manager. If you want to pursue any career trajectory other than these three, there is ZERO reason for you to work at AlphaSights. Ethnic and socioeconomic diversity isn't good either.
