Pros
- Good pay and benefits - Free snacks - Nice building
Cons
99.9% of the job is just cold calling people who don't want to talk to you in an attempt to get free information out of them that the company then turns around and sells to other clients for a large profit. There is no research as a "research associate". This is a glorified call center where you will be expected to make at least 80 calls a day, trying to talk to at least 20 people for more than 90 seconds each call. It is very metrics based. If your calls are less than 90 seconds they don't count. If you communicate with someone by email it doesn't count. The company cares less about research and acquiring information, and more about just unabashedly branding itself. You must constantly brand the company using a bunch of statistics multiple times during each call, so naturally, most people think you are trying to sell them something, and usually hang up on you immediately. It feels very slimy and a bit shady and definitely degrading. You will be hung up on constantly, often times yelled at because the company keeps calling the same people at least once a month (often times multiple times a month, especially in training) just to verify the same information over and over again. You are literally just harassing people about the company nonstop, calling them repeatedly on every number they have - at home, their cell, work, multiple times a day. The work is very competitive and fosters an environment where the people at the top (who make the most successful calls) are constantly praised, while the people at the bottom (who can't get someone to answer the phone or who don't want to talk to them) are told to find more effective ways to get the job done. They make it out to be your fault if people don't want to talk to you or won't answer the phone the 6 times in a day you call. Also, all your calls are recorded (where state law allows) and your computer screen is recorded as well, so they can know what you say and what you're doing on the call. It's very big brother and invasive, there's no privacy whatsoever, and a constant fear of being replaced if you can't meet the quota for your calls. The money is not worth the loss of sanity and dignity that comes with the job.