Costello Medical Reviews

3.7

62% would recommend to a friend

(105 total reviews)

Sophie Costello

87% approve of CEO

81% positive business outlook

Costello Medical has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 105 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Costello Medical employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

105 reviews
2.0
31 Mar 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

"Good for CV", varied project work, and big clients

Cons

Unless you fit the Costello mould (middle class Oxbridge graduate, signs off internal emails with "Best wishes") , you will struggle to fit in and enjoy working at Costello. Although the company has a great external reputation, I suspect that the Best Companies awards which the company has received for a number of years is not truly deserved - I rated the company really highly on this survey only so that it would look good for my future employers, not because I actually enjoyed working there. I know that many of my colleagues did the same thing. The company culture feels horribly insincere. As for salary (a faux pas topic of discussion in the company), I was unhappy with my reward package given that I worked very hard. As an analyst you can expect to be taken advantage of. Analysts receive very, very little reward for their hard work (ie no bonus) - they only get an occasional (50-100 GBP) gift voucher despite doing most of the work. Salary progression is also not great. Analyst starting salary is 30,000 and it increases by roughly 1,000 each year (no bonus). Senior analyst salary is 38,000 and you can get up to two bonuses each year (roughly 3,000 each). Consultant salary is 45,000 and, although I do not know the size of the consultant bonus, I assume it is also two bonuses annually of at least 3,000. Finally, regarding the senior management team, this team are all members of staff who are very friendly with one another as they have built the company together. Although I admire how much they have grown the company, because they are such a tight-knit management team, they do talk behind everyone's back - this potentially intensifies the uncomfortable culture of insincerity.

avatar
Costello Medical Response
5y
Thank you for your review, though naturally we are disappointed to read about your less than positive experience at the company. Particularly saddening are your comments about individuals struggling to fit in. We have a strong company culture and ethos which is supportive, friendly, and hardworking, and we strive to ensure that it is inclusive of all staff who chose to work for us. Our Equality and Inclusion Taskforce, made up of colleagues from all areas and levels of our company, is evidence of our commitment to this. In terms of our reputation as a good place to work, every year we run an internal, anonymous company survey the sole purpose of which is to help us understand how we can continue to improve as a workplace and the results we see here are aligned with the Best Companies award. Your review is recent; however, you are not aware of the changes that we have made to rewards during the past 12 months, the most recent coming into effect at the start of April this year. The starting salary for Analysts/Medical Writers, Health Economists and Statisticians is now £33,000, increasing to £34,000 after the 6-month probation period, which we know to be competitive for our field. All current employees in these roles have had their salaries uplifted to reflect their experience level. The Senior Analyst and Consultant salaries have also been increased to offer a higher level of reward, reflective of the company’s continued success and the contributions that our colleagues have made to this. We feel it is important to point out that your assumptions around bonuses are incorrect.
2.0
1 Dec 2022

Toxic work culture

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Junior staff members (and some of the more recent senior staff members) are lovely and will go out of their way to help you. Nice social environment, due to lovely junior staff members. Variety of tasks performed.

Cons

The focus on maintaining a positive work environment is used as a way to silence staff members who have concerns over work-load or stress. Staff members are given impossible work deadlines and loads, then made to feel they are underperforming if they cannot reach these impossible deadlines. No staff members can reach these targets working the contracted hours, instead they all work over-time - however this is often done in secret to appear as if the deadline were actually feasible. Staff members who are honest about work loads and stress are then informed they are not productive enough, or are not maintaining a positive attitude, whereas they are really just being honest. This can leave staff feeling they are not good enough, when in reality the expectations are a farce. Numerous staff members have left due to burn out for the above reasons. Many who remain feel the same, yet are afraid to break the toxic culture of positive silence. To maintain this environment, they hire perfectionists who struggle to admit when they are struggling, thus hide that, suffer in silence, and subsequently maintain this toxic environment. Due to all the above reasons, work life balance is largely unattainable. Interns are performing the same role as Medical Writers/Analysts, yet are paid around 10,000 less per year. Exceedingly white and middle class.

avatar
Costello Medical Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback about your experience at Costello Medical. We are sorry to hear of your concerns about your previous workload; we recognise that due to the nature of our work, there will inevitably be periods of increased workload and that client demands can be high, but we want to ensure that unsustainable workloads are not the norm. Having periods to reset and recalibrate are really important – often referred to as peaks and troughs. All colleagues are encouraged to speak with their line manager, Division Head or the People team if they have concerns about their workload. This is an area we monitor closely and we have taken many proactive steps this year to ensure that colleagues continue to feel supported at work; this has included increased monitoring of working hours, pastoral support from the People team, training for our core and senior teams on confidence and perfectionism at work, training for line managers on supporting their line managees, and recruitment efforts to ensure that project teams are well resourced. Results from our 2022 annual Employee Survey showed that over 86% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that their line manager supports their wellbeing and so we hope that this speaks true of most of our colleagues’ experiences. We are also proud of the friendly, supportive and collaborative culture that we have maintained; our annual Employee Survey results showed that 94% of respondents feel proud to work at Costello Medical, and we were pleased to receive our highest ever engagement score in the Best Companies survey last year. Thank you once again for taking the time to provide your feedback.
2.0
9 Feb 2023

Pressure and cliqueyness

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company is well structured and there is a lot of opportunity to work on a wide breadth of projects. Most of the new/newly promoted staff are nice. Path for development is clear and good feedback on work.

Cons

Only now that I'm at a different agency I realise the level of control on your emails and working practices at Costello is not normal. It would make me feel on edge and anxious constantly. Work/life balance was terrible. I started early and finished late every day. I'd have frequent ultra late nights/weekend work, and I know for a fact I wasn't the only one, but it's just not spoken about. Fun is always "manufactured fun". They try hard but there was no sense of real friendship or cohesion within the team. People speak behind your back about you to your manager rather than talk to you first. Leaves a feeling of unsafety. At least while I was there, no real diversity. I worked with primarily white, privately educated, oxbridge graduates.

avatar
Costello Medical Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to review your experience at Costello Medical. Whilst we are pleased to see that you enjoyed the wide breadth of projects that you worked on, as well as the clarity of development pathways, we are sorry to hear that your work-life balance was affected. As we have detailed in our previous review responses, this is an area that we actively monitor and take proactive steps to ensure that working patterns do not become unsustainable. Our Employee Survey data shows that most colleagues feel a sense of belonging at Costello Medical; in our 2022 survey, 88% of respondents were strongly satisfied or satisfied with their relationships and support offered at work, whilst over 80% strongly agreed or agreed that they feel a sense of belonging at the company. Whilst we might organise fun activities, such as our divisional and company-wide socials, we hope that fun is had organically, too; we were pleased to see that when we asked all UK colleagues how they would describe working at Costello Medical in 2022, “friendly”, “supportive” and “fun” were the top three descriptors. We would also like to note that our colleagues across the UK were hired from over 40 different universities, and so please be assured that we actively recruit and indeed welcome new joiners from a wide variety of institutions. In addition to this, we have a dedicated Equality & Inclusion taskforce, consisting of colleagues across the company in a variety of roles, who support our diversity and inclusion efforts. A key project launching this year is to increase our collection of E&I-related data to inform our actions in this area. Finally, I can assure you that individuals speaking to line managers with feedback in the first instance is always done so with the right intention. We generally encourage colleagues to provide constructive feedback directly to line managers, whether during our performance review season or throughout the year, so that line managers can disseminate feedback in the format in which their line managee would prefer, and can also look out for trends in the feedback provided. We actively encourage 360 feedback from colleagues across all roles so that line managers can see a truly representative picture of an individual’s performance and contributions at work, and we are pleased with the amount of 360 feedback that is provided across the company.
Viewing 1 - 3 of 105 Reviews

Glassdoor has 120 Costello Medical reviews submitted anonymously by Costello Medical employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Costello Medical is right for you.