MSI Reviews

Former Employee – worked at MSI

Pros – They tend to hire very knowledgeable people, some have extensive industry experience.

Cons – Smart people don't always make good managers. Overall, company lacks quality staff managers; no consistent systems to develop employee talent across the company; no clear career path for employees.

Current Employee – been working at MSI full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – They start with 3 weeks of vacation which is uncommon for full-time jobs.
All employees are allowed to work from home once a week.

Cons – Low salaries for tech people. Promote only those that are friends with the bosses.

Advice to Senior Management – Reduce the number of VPs and spend the money on low level positions that actually get the work done. Do we really need 30 VPs for the turnover we have?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MSI full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – liberal, work and life balance, full of opportunity internally

Cons – flexible, lack of centralized power to control oversea business

Advice to Senior Management – be stronger to manage global business

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at MSI full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Yo get to cross-train, and learn different aspects of supervisory positions.

Cons – Sometimes long, unpredictable work shcedule.

Advice to Senior Management – Show more respect to hourly workers; many times, they have more experience and education that the managers do. If not for them, no one would have a job!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MSI part-time for more than a year

Pros – Flexible shifts.

Great for students with low living costs and going to school.

somewhat familiar territory specially for those fresh out of high school.

minimum wage, slightly higher wages for Spanish speakers.

Variety of age groups, great for some new types of friendships.

freedom to read, sow or do other things which calling. (except those requiring electronics)

Friendly people for the most part.

Cons – very close to a dead end job. very few raise to higher levels of management and in y experience it took them more than 2 years each. i have worked there for over a year and a half.

Hours are not very consistent though rarely lower than 20 per week.
enough to survive on but not much if you aspire for more. the average for me has been about 24h/w when im scheduled for 28h/w.

Innovation and creativity are not of value as a surveyor at MSI. this may have to do with it being a large franchise and there being significant layering of policies that make for a somewhat controlled and rigid environment.

The high control environment can become frustrated for more mature individuals.

Can get boring pretty quick.

Performance incentives are not good. they add about 25 cents + to your hourly wage if you are a top performer after 3 month period reviews. which on a part time bases adds to about 2 extra bears a month, maybe 3. not that much. this for me and many others ive worked with, leads to aiming at a, "good enough" productivity to pass, but not good enough to excel since its just extra work without extra pay. basically, for lack of a better word, mediocracy is the standard.

Advice to Senior Management – Set up a more profitable bonus structure. try to lower overhead costs and add those to surveyors at a per survey basis, calculated per complete per hour. this i think should enhance productivity and worker happiness. which might help keep employers for longer and lower training and turn over costs.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at MSI full-time for less than a year

Pros – Fair enough for the salary.

Cons – so much pressure to all the workers...thats business anyway..

Advice to Senior Management – Dont hold your empleyees, because you cannot achieve sales without them...dont put to much pressure on them, for the sake of achieving the sales...they are also human being who gets tired and have problems...

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MSI

Pros – Flexible
People that work there are highly intelligent
Amazing HR
Work Hard/Play Hard environment
Great at giving back to the community
Transparent
You can talk to any senior level person at the company, even the CEO if you have an idea

Cons – Low salary
Promotions are out of reach and unclear
Hard to make changes internally
Silo'd positions (little opportunity to branch out)

Advice to Senior Management – Please don't let great talent slip away because you pay them too little and/or don't want to offer then career opportunities that allow them to make working at Market Strategies a lifelong decision.

Former Employee – worked at MSI

Pros – During the difficult year of 2009, upper management did everything they could to retain talented employees, including giving themselves pay cuts and instituting furlough days rather than pay cuts in the lower ranks.

Cons – Pretty hierarchical, low entry level salaries, difficult to advance. Needs more family-oriented female leadership.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at MSI

Pros – MSI is a stable and growing company, which seems to be unusual in Detroit. They have a strong and growing position in tracking research.

Cons – As with many marketing research companies their employees tend to lack business acumen. Lower level employees seem to feel there are few growth opportunities, with many employees stagnating in place for extended periods. For employees, lacks the breadth of experience found at other companies for which I have worked.

Advice to Senior Management – Word on the street is that lower level employees are frustrated with an inability to grow professionally. I've heard this from several people.