| Senior Research Associate |
I worked with the Corporate Executive Board as it grew from less than
600 employees to more than 1200 employees. I worked in the marketing
(sales) department for nearly one year before applying to and accepting
an entry-level position (considered a promotion) in one of their
research divisions, and then moving laterally to another research
division into a similar position. I am an employee who received a
promotion in each department that I worked in, before departing the
company this Spring voluntarily. I left to pursue different kinds of
jobs in the DC area.
To begin with, the company changed considerably in terms of its
corporate culture from the moment that I accepted employment to my final
day there this year. When I first arrived at CEB, the company was (and
still is) very young. My peers were age 21 to 24, and the people we
worked for were age 24 to 30, with a few exceptions here and there.
After some company indoctrination, we considered ourselves a cheaper
(Wal-Mart?) alternative to business consultants, and for good reason:
Corporate Executive Board's research products are high-quality at low
cost. As one executive at a company we worked with had said, one page
of our research was worth a few hundred thousand dollars, taking into
account how much his company had paid a competitor for similar research
costing far more money. During my tenure, many people either left the
company or moved rapidly into different positions. Part of the reason
for such advancement was not the growth of the company: a lot of people
left. During my first group meeting with the human resources staff of
the company, the director of employee benefits made sure to specify
which of our benefits were "portable" - which ones we could transfer in
the event we left the company. In essence, she designed her
presentation to take into account the fact that people did not stay at
Corporate Executive Board very long. Corporate Executive Board is a
young company: I would call it the largest employer of just-out-of-
college workers in DC.
Corporate Executive Board, in terms of diversity, fails on a lot of
levels. When I began working there, my "start group" - the group of
employees that started the same day, was a room full of mostly white
kids from elite colleges, with the occasional "refuge" from other
consulting companies and a career-switching lawyer or two in the mix.
(My first boss was also a career-switching lawyer, who took a sales
director position at Corporate Executive Board after working as a
corporate attorney for a few years. Since she was from Canada and her
parents from Pakistan, by virtue of her presence at the company she made
it a lot more diverse!). The complexion of the company did not change
much over my tenure: I rarely had a black or hispanic colleague. In my
last position, I worked with a nearly all-white group of students with
similar educational backgrounds. I would also argue that the company
became somewhat more of a club: many of the hires on my team came from
the same university and all knew each other (which means that people
often hired their friends, or, if not friends, those with a nearly
identical background). In other instances, the company seems as if it
limits its black workers to low support-level positions (such as
receptionist or call-center employees), and I never saw them in
different kinds of positions. While my experience is not completely
representative of that for others (the company does help some employees
from overseas to gain work visas), Corporate Executive Board has a long
ways to go to become a more diverse place.
In terms of dress code, people can wear jeans to work. The dress code
is one of the big benefits of working at Corporate Executive Board, but
I would warn people interested in companies with relaxed dress codes
that a relaxed dress code does not mean a place is very relaxed!
Working at Corporate Executive Board can be stressful. While the
official hours are 830 to 530, it is common to see employees working
from 8 AM to 8 PM, especially in the research divisions, where there is
a new initiative to increase the quality of research and the
productivity of staff. What this means essentially is that research
divisions are competing with each other to see who can produce the most
research. That translates into longer hours and an environment where
employees take their work home with them, either to advance or to just
get by. This year, I pulled several all nighters to finish research
projects for the division I worked for. I considered that time to be
necessary to complete an escalated work load, unfortunately.
Part of what makes working at Corporate Executive Board unappealing is
its increasingly hierarchical structure. Employees regularly revere Jay
McGonigle, the company CEO, for his ability to keep the company growing
and generally do not question his plans. This cultural tendency to
believe completely in the CEO's vision welcomes no dissent; and this
attitude of never questioning the boss runs through every relationship
at CEB. Simply, as an employee at CEB you do what the boss says to do,
and you do not question them. This can be a frustrating experience
because managers, in many instances, are hardly more experienced than
you may be (they may have a year or so more under their belt). It's
quite an experience to look at a boss your age and know you cannot argue
with them or express your opinion without retribution (such as being
passed over for promotion).
It is not uncommon to see different groups working full schedules on
weekends, including research directors and their staff. They do not get
paid for this time. As one manager once said to me, "your compensation
is your salary" - there is no overtime offered for most positions at
Corporate Executive Board.
In terms of opportunities for advancement, I would say that Corporate
Executive Board will keep offering positions as it keeps expanding and
as people keep leaving. However, I would comment that competition is
intensifying internally for different opportunities. For example, if an
employee wants a position in sales, those opportunities would always be
available. However, if you are looking to move up within your own
division, you will compete against an extremely high number of employees
for any one position. (The last one I tried for had over 40 internal
employees competing for the position. That means your odds of landing
that job are pretty low). For another position, the company picked a
candidate from outside the country over me. For people who wanted to
stay on the same kind of department career track (research associate ->
research analyst), the transition to a new opportunity is much easier
than for those who want to work in different kinds of roles (such as the
company's new business development group).
Corporate Executive Board is expanding internationally: there are
greater chances for working abroad than there were when I was hired.
|
Corporate Executive Board Interview Surveys
