Part I - Unacceptable:
1. Short notice for interview rounds. Weird recruitment process (group interviews: who else is doing that? Was that a cool thing in the 90s?)
2. New employees will face the situation that nothing is prepared for them when they start working: No laptop, no telephone, no business cards, etc. (be happy if they did not forget that you came)
3. Way below average starting salary (you are working that Alcimed management becomes rich, not you, you fool!)
4. No appreciation for Phd degree: Phds start on same level as MsC, and career progression is the same (only difference is very low salary difference, but apparently you did not study that during your PhD)
5. Secret bonuses: few consultants and project managers get an additional second bonus (though very low). No one knows the criteria for it. And the person receiving the bonus is in the bad position to lie to his/her colleagues about this extra bonus, because it must be kept a secret (Tip: team building works differently)
6. High turnover of staff (not revenue). Average stay of Business developer and consultants: 1-1 ½ years
7. No dedicated Human Resource (2 HR staff have left years ago, and got never replaced. But no wonder, how can you find good people incluing HR without HR?)
8. No additional benefit when promoted to senior consultant (e.g. no salary increases, but you will be expected to work more! So why should anyone be happy to be promoted?)
9. Career progression is almost impossible without speaking French (malchance)
10. No international company culture, but French culture is forced on all offices (French company with offices abroad)
11. Need to work constantly extra hours ((no tracking system for worked hours, because Alcimed counts in “working days”!)
12. Almost no compensation for extra hour’s: if you work 10 extra hours per week, you will get nothing. Only if you work crazy hours for a project, you might get ~4h compensation (=0.5day) for each ~20 extra hours (2.5 days) you have worked, but only after hard and lucky negotiations
13. No workers´ council (Betriebsrat) (but do not worry, I do not think any other authoritarian leadership has it)
14. No employee surveys, because not wanted by the company (Do not ask what Alcimed can do for you, ask what you can do for Alcimed)
15. Mentioning negative feedback is considered as “person who creates problems” (you are at Alcimed to work, not to complain or make friends)
16. Only top-down feedback. Consultants are at the bottom of the food chain, so no one cares what you think (do as you are told and keep working)
17. No proper software or tools used for projects. Google is the main starting point for research
18. Lots of cold calling (often: not allowed to say for you are calling; cannot pay interviewee, boring topics, 45min calls)
19. Many projects are market research projects: i). Googling people ii) cold calling iii) summarizing iv) making PPTs v) repeating steps i-iv
20. Fixed summer and winter holidays. Means, that only half of the holidays can be freely chosen
21. Employees have been asked to write positive reviews on Glassdoor because of negative feedback. Instead, the following should have happened i) ask if the feedback is true ii) ask what needs be done to change it iii) change things to improve situation iv) Ask if a staff is more satisfied
22. No experienced project managers. Project managers have only 3-4 years’ experience at Alcimed and have never worked anywhere else. Therefore, they do not provide much intellectual input, but rather only tell what to do (but not how)
23. No external knowledge/expertise because of “inbreeding culture”. 95% of project managers or above have never worked anywhere else. No one has ever worked for a healthcare / Life Science company but wants to consult those industries
24. … many more negative points could be listed. But if you need more points to be convinced that this is a bad company , then you are already lost.
Part II - No goes:
25. If you need to go to Paris for your final interview and you need for any reason a hotel (like travelling is otherwise not possible), then you need to pay for it by yourself (not the best first impression of a company)
26. Low and partial unfair annual salary increase. No direct negotiation during annual evaluation
27. Annual consultant bonus is an insult (super low, no motivation to work harder). No fair and clear rules who receives the bonus.
28. No incentives/benefits for consultants for contributing mainly through their own excellent work to follow-up projects. Project Managers and Business Developers get all the incentives
29. Low choice for consultants on what projects to work on (Forrst Gump would say: It is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you will get next)
30. Training in Paris: Project managers are randomly allocated to give training, which leads to low quality of the training session for consultants. No external organized training (Alcimed: why invest in staff if they leave soon anyway?)
31. No English is spoken during summer, Christmas or other company-wide events! Only French is spoken with English translator (no translator during dinner times, which means you rely on French colleagues to know what is going on. Comprenez vous?!) (Pro tip: Make sure to have google translator bookmarked in your browser, you will need it a lot for all the emails in French you will get)
32. No long holidays allowed from September to end December (busy times for the company, or bad organization?)
33. Not enough tables in the office, therefore a “flex” office was established temporary (no worries. With staff leaving that quickly, you will find a table soon)
34. Not enough rooms for meetings or calls (Pro Tip: Get noise-cancelling headphones, otherwise your colleagues will get on your nerves when they call KOLs (=random people) all the time next to you)
35. Must wear business clothes in office, though no need for it (For an unknown reason, it is very important to look smart when you call people 😊)
36. No dedicated time for office meetings, doing own expenses, etc. Means you must work harder to compensate for the “lost” time
37. No German market & culture expertise. Both Cologne office heads are not from Germany
38. Home office only rarely possible (since when people can choose where to work in a company run by an authoritarian leadership?)
39. Travelling to external meetings often in own free time
40. No company credit card. You need to pay for expenses in advance by yourself (Having company credit cards would make sense, but hey, let’s do things differently (=worse))
41. Closed London office in 2016 (I wonder why… )
42. No KOL network or contact list (Big loud crowd chanting: Google it, google it, google it)
43. No realistic projects are often sold by Business Developers, and consultants must find ways to solve the problems. If not achieved, then consultants are evaluated badly
44. No communication between Business Developers and consultants about good or bad things of finished projects. Means, Business Developers will sell the same projects again and the consultant must deal with the same problems again during the next projects (Business Developer incentives are based on revenue, not on happiness of colleagues)
45. Non-French speaking Business Developers are not going once per month to Paris for training (like French speaking Business Developer), but have every 3 months video training
46. Business Developers are considered more important than consultants
47. ∞
