Pros
Read the last paragraph in the "Cons" section for a summary. QuEST is a great place to learn new things, especially for those of you that have worthless degrees, like myself. That's why I rated QuEST high in "Career Opportunities". You won't find many opportunities within the company, but after gaining experience you will find opportunities to advance your career elsewhere. You will find someone with a music degree in the IT department, an English degree in the Supply Chain group, and a video production degree in the Quality group. So, if you prove your capability in a particular area QuEST will give you an opportunity to do it. This is a MAJOR perk about this company! They don't necessarily care where you came from, they only care about the results that you produce. Sadly, I noticed that this benefit is starting to dwindle as QuEST has been hiring overqualified people with engineering degrees to do work that has nothing to do with engineering. QuEST has always allowed employees to maintain a good work / life balance. If you need to take some time off work, most supervisors won't mind if you work four ten hour days, or come in early, or leave late so you don't need to use your limited paid time off (as long as it doesn't interfere with customer requirements). However, over this past year some supervisors have been clamping down on this perk. I hope management takes notice of this and nips it before it starts having more of an impact on turnover rate. Most jobs require some level of direct customer interaction (in East Hartford it will be Pratt and Whitney). If you have a good relationship with your customer and network with their group, you can sometimes get a job with them after a year or two.
Cons
If you work hard don't expect to get paid more. They require people to work for six months in a position with additional responsibility before they will increase your pay rate and formally promote you. They call this a "Star" position. I'm not even sure if QuEST has a human resources department. Every once and a while they'll send out company wide emails about policy changes, but It's almost impossible to get a response from them when you have an HR related problem. They will tell you during your interview that you will get a good amount of paid time off, but they don't tell you that it takes 3 years before you actually get that amount. They will tell you during your interview that they have a 401k matching program, but they won't tell you that they only match 25% of the first 4% of your paycheck. They will tell you during your interview that they pay for higher education, but they won't tell you that they pay $2,000 per semester per candidate (whichever is lesser) to up to five North American employees. There are hundreds of North American QuEST employees, so good luck. They will tell you during your interview about the job that you applied for, but they don't tell you that there is a very good chance that you will be put on a completely different project when you're hired. They will tell you during your interview that they have multiple health insurance plans to choose from, but they won't tell you that all the plans are garbage. They will tell you during your interview that you will receive a yearly bonus, but they won't tell you that the bonus is largely based off company metrics so you should only expect about half of it. Also, no one knows what the company metrics are or what they are based off of. They just say every year that they didn't meet their goal, with no further explanation. If you try to ask for an explanation they will tell you that it's "confidential". They will tell you during your interview that they have training courses, but they really don't. To be honest they have some kind of online training, but no one knows how to use it or sign up for courses and charging your time to overhead activities (like training) instead of charging the customer is a sin in the eyes of management. As long as you want to work at QuEST knowing that you are only going to be there for a couple years to gain experience then I highly recommend it. If you want to be hired at QuEST because you want it to be a lifelong career, then I would advise to look elsewhere.