Pros
* Incredible people and colleagues - no office politics, people are genuine and everyone at any level invests a lot of time in listening and developing their people * Performance culture - it's a meritocracy and you have early access to upward mobility * Early exposure to managing a team, a book of business and people * High development in soft skills & client service * Strong exposure to working in a fast-paced and challenging environment * A lot of autonomy and you can make the role what you want out of it, if you master the fundamentals and meet the performance requirements. Ie. if you're passionate about developing new services, you can be involved in that process within your first year. Same goes with compliance, improving internal processes, data analysis, etc. But you need to take the initiative to pursue those opportunities. * Opportunity for cross-functional collaboration - lots of opp. to collaborate closely with these Product, Tech, Marketing, Legal, Finance, etc to drive new initiatives for your clients but you need to take the initiative and make it happen * Very good work culture - everyone is driven, ambitious, looking to improve themselves. There is also a strong feedback culture within any level of the organization. Lastly, there is an entire department (Professional Development) dedicated to help you develop as a professional and help you with your career thinking. * Great social events & ambiance * Decent pay - the work hours are 8 - 6pm, but the role does necessitate working sometimes beyond those hours as it's client service (ie. if a client sends an email, there is an expectation to reply to them quickly as their projects have a very fast turn-around and you're usually competing with other service providers). That said, you can certainly perform well, achieve beyond your targets and be a good team player without having to work beyond those hours constantly. The company is also constantly reviewing how the employee's salaries compare in their market place, and have in recent years, implemented raises on the base pay for both Associates and Managers. * Big opportunities for internal mobility as well (ie. transferring into our Product team or taking on a newly created role). The company wants to elevate and hire from within if they can. * No layoffs during Covid-19 and rescinded offers - AlphaSights did a great job to make sure all of their employees kept their jobs during the pandemic and provided great strategies to maintain growth.
Cons
* Lack of hard skills (ie. technical skills) * Industry agnostic which can make it hard to specific in your next role & you won't necessarily develop any industry-specific expertise * Can be a very reactive role at times, which leaves less time for proactive strategy and execution * Stressful & demanding - requires a lot of grit, fast action and time management. It's client service for clients who are under very strict timelines, and you're dealing with people (ie. Advisors) who can take time to reach and onboard. * Most of management has only worked at this company - can be a lack of other perspectives/expertise/experience. But as a result, they adopt and implement the company culture and remain very humble ie. quite transparent, care for their people, very accessible, put thought into people management, very driven and fun to work with