Pros
-Some people there are smart and have vivid/fun personalities -People can be "nice" -Bagels in the staff lounge every Friday morning were nice -Great learning experience, especially if you are interested in learning more about micro-finance and international development as a whole. -CEO is very friendly. -The organization itself has done amazing work and tries to keep rates low for its clients across low-income countries. -Opportunity to meet other interns -HR folks are great. They understand FINCA's values more than anyone else there
Cons
-Even though there was opportunity to learn firsthand how financial services delivery works, I was mainly typing and editing documents, and doing a bunch of boring administrative backstopping. I was bored out of my mind. They don't care about your own learning objectives, depending on the department. -You can work as hard as you want. It won't matter. At the end of the way what you are working on may get tossed out the window and end up never being used. -They communicate a lot through silos and you'd have to deal with so much bureaucracy, along with "unwritten rules and leeway" -High turnover -People don't care! They are just there because it is a job. They do not seem dedicated or passionate about their work. -They do not understand their own core values. It was just last year they figured out their branding. -Operating with not much vision. -Lots of mixed messaging and mixed communication. Expectations are never set clearly. Communication is poor. -People are very informal, and friendly when informal, but treat you like crap when they become formal, especially during the quarterly Board meetings. -Mediocre work done in a rush versus quality seems to be the norm. -No opportunity for professional development, and you'll be lucky if you even get feedback on your work. -I had to figure a lot of things without guidance, and even supervisor was winging it. Absolutely no structure. -Very little information sharing -On-boarding/orientation is very poor -They do not know how to make their employees/interns feel valued. Words are not enough!! -I was always kept out of the loop of things. Even when I worked on a project, I would hardly get feedback or kept in the loop of its progress or implementation -the computers are soooooo slow and hamper on productivity. It took me 30 minutes each morning to get my computer up and running -the organization just seems lost