- Training and supporting resources are limited. There's one formal training, which is not helpful at all, and then you're on your own. Your training largely depends on how much your practice and your managers care about you personally and if they don't, you're doomed. You're not expected to learn anything that's outside your daily tasks, which put you at a really bad position at the beginning of a career. If you struggle, the only thing HR could do is serve your a PIP and tell you "good luck", instead of offering any substantial help or advice.
- Subpar pay. Competing companies such as Cornerstone and Analysis Group pay significantly better than CRA, which means you're doing the exactly the same job for 2/3 of the pay. Also as a result of this, people who could multiple offers all choose other companies and people who have nowhere else to go come here, which ends up with unhappy employees.
- Lack of feedback and performance evaluation. There's no formal feedback structures. You need to be very proactive to get feedbacks, which means that you're constantly struggling not knowing how to improve. Bonus and promotion are also black boxes, sometimes people get promotions or higher bonus because the practice head likes their personality better.
- Culture. Management doesn't even bother to pretend they care about you as a person or your professional development. They're more interested in how much bonus they could get. I had a VP who's known among junior staff in the office for being hostile towards women, and the HR doesn't bother doing anything because he could bring in clients.
I mean it when I say this place is toxic and please stay away for your own sake. I developed serious depression during my time at CRA, with suicidal thoughts; for a few months, I cried very often in my cubicle, struggling to find a way to please my boss. I looked for feedback and advice but no one seems to bother to give me any. I witnessed my close friends at work getting fired out of blue and the management made up horrible reasons to justify why they got fired. Another coworker of mine left because she had a mental breakdown with the pressure from the management. The general attitude is "if you struggle, professionally or personally, we just fire you and find someone else." They don't care about your physical health or mental health. This company is a fine example of "Chew you up and spit you out". I left the company the second I had the opportunity, and I know many of my friends there did or will do the same.
