Job Responsibilities
- Writing studies/practices (actually creating the studies that are our main
product)- 25%.
- Interviewing senior executives (VP/CXO-level; typically conduct, 1-hour one on
one interviews on the phone or in-person w/ Fortune
500 execs) - 20%.
- Business development (renewel/new business support) - 15%.
- Coaching / Management of analysts (my favorite -- and the least.
acknowledged -- part of the job!) - 10%.
- Editing other's work - 10%.
- Presenting to members (clients) - 10%.
- Secondary research - 5%.
- Quantitative analysis (finding trends in survey data, etc.) - 5%.
|
Job Requirements
- Conultants are typically MBAs with business experience or PhDs
- The company is masterful at bringing highly qualified people
into extremely low-paying jobs -- we have MBAs from 2nd tier
schools and folks w/ advanced degrees from places like LSE coming
in 2 levels below were they should be (we recently hired an MBA
from a top-20 school in an analyst role at $40K!); the company's
philosophy is get as much work as you can out of people for the
least amount of money and they'll either 1. work their hearts out
to get promoted or 2. quit and be "easily replaced."
Unfortunately for CEB, the tightening job market is no longer
supporting the second proposition. What we're seeing is
increased attrition and more and more rejected offers from
prospective hires. Word seems to be getting out...
- Hierarchy (on research side of the business -- CEB's product
engine): Analyst, Sr. Analyst, Consultant, Project Manager,
Practice Manager, Managing Director, Executive Director, General
Manager), CEO
|
Uppers
- Working closely with very senior executives across all industries -- you could
be talking extensively with the CxO of P&G one day, IBM the next, Yahoo! the day
after, etc... Not only are you learning about their issues and trying to create
studies that address them, you can often map existing research to their needs in
the moment -- quickly becoming a hero in their eyes. Because of this dynamic and
our subscriber revenue model (one annual fee, "all you can eat"), CEB researchers
are not presumed to have a hidden agenda (to sell additional work ala management
consultants) and truly become "trusted advisors" with whom CxOs share their
toughest problems
- Smart, hard-working, diverse colleagues
|
Downers
- The Company has very aggressive growth goals -- effectively
doubling its size over the next four years. To do this, middle
management has to expand vastly. Strangely, promotions at the
middle-level -- Consultant, Project Manager, Practice Manager --
have slowed to a trickle and the Company has been looking to make
lots of outside hires (pretty demoralizing to current employees --
and spot promotions are virtually unknown). Unfortunately, the
value proposition for those in the middle is quite terrible -- no
options, no stock grants, below market pay ($80-95K for
Consultants), 1% 401K match, no formal development, and slow
promotion.
- Very top-down/insular culture -- frustrating for entreprenurial
MBAs -- "keep your trap shut till you've been here for a year"
- For those who like to manage people, don't expect to be
rewarded for it -- CEB promotes people who produce "great
content" -- management is less than 20% of a managers review;
while upward feedback is given, it is not a major factor in
reviews; a great manager w/ great upward reviews MAY be patted on
the back; a great content producer who's a terrible manager WILL
likely be promoted
- Unfriendly place for women wanting to spend more time w/
families -- while women are VERY successful here full-time
(though very few are in the executive ranks of CEB management),
the company has been fairly unreceptive to working part-time,
unlike many of the top-tier consulting/accounting firms
- Employees recently completed an "engagement survey" which
showed mid- and junior-level people to be vastly disatisfied with
people management and compensation -- the company's answer: we'll
try and hire a few people to teach our managers had to better
manage... no incentives to MAKE manager pay attention to how they
handle their people and no increase in compensation in the near
term
- Risk averse culture - management would rather leave an
important position unfilled for months than actually "take a
chance" on an internal candidate in a stretch role.
- Frugality - every cent must be accounted for on travel claims
(literally); 50% of our buildings are decrepit and/or over-
crowded (probably to the point of violating the law); the famous
CEB happy hours of the past happen maybe once or twice a year
now, held in house w/ cheap beer
- Incompetent HR function -- recruits are treated poorly (calls
not returned, months to get closure on offers, etc) and the Chief
Admin Officer (who oversees HR) is a former researcher who's
completely out of his league, unresponsive and uncomfortable
answering questions from employees
- In short, the fun is gone; becoming a public company w/ its
quarter-to-quarter pressures and immature management (senior
people who are researchers at heart, not managers) has reaped
havoc upon what only 4 years ago was a fantastic, exhilerating
place to work.
|
Lifestyle
- people from all walks of life and educational backgrounds
- lots of folks on visas (company is pretty good on helping them w/ legal
issues)
- While CEB touts a great work-life balance (one of the reasons they claim their
pay should be below market), it's not so -- researchers can expect 60-80 hour
weeks; that said, the worst times of the year are pretty predictable and you can
plan ahead to work weekends and very late nights
- A bright spot is that for most employees, travel is pretty light (one of the
few recruitment claims that proved to be true).
|
Compensation
Consultant:
- base: $80-100K (according to recent recruting claims conveyed
from friends on MBA campuses); highest heard anyone coming in at
is $95K
- bonus: UP TO 20% of base -- one of the biggest recruiting
fallacies out there! No one gets the maximum bonus -- far more
typical is 5-10% (calculated based on the average score from two
performance reviews across a single year -- NOT on your most
recent review alone). Taxes take about half of your payout when
you get it -- in March.
- merit increase: very shady -- most people's increases honestly
don't keep them ahead of inflation; the not so funny joke
(because it's true) is that government workers in town
automatically get twice most CEB employees' increases
- stock options: CEO has told the Street no one below Practice
Manager will be granted options (though he did sell $11 M of his
own options this year)
- stock grants: doesn't happen (except maybe at the senior-most
level)
- 401K: good plan (Vanguard), terrible match (max of 1%, if you
contribute 4% or more)
- Healthcare: not bad, but prescription benefit is pretty small;
word is company is trying to cut costs here
- In general the Company is very Machavellian on comp/benefits --
they conduct a firm-wide conjoint analysis each year to see which
benefits employees value most to find opportunities to cut as
many benefits as they can w/o people quitting (not to improve
benefits employees actually value and improve retention).
|
Advice to Jobseekers
- Hold Talent Management's (HR's) feet to the fire; negotiate
hard to 1. come in at a higher level than they offer, 2. put any
financial promises in writing (they tend not to budge much on
salary, but will sometimes increase signing bonuses -- if you can
get one at all), 3. insist to talk w/ people in the program they
want to assign you (picking the right program is a real trick --
depending on managers you could end-up miserable)
- Insist on a mentor (only a handfull are made available through
CEB's formal program)
- Insist on regular development/coaching pull-ups; don't relent
until they're on the schedule, or you may be surprised at review
time.
|
|
