Pros
Very nice people and overall friendly office environment, although it can be passive-aggressive from middle management and there is some underlying tension between departments. The London office is small but not overbearing - for this reason it is a great place to start as, if you want to, here you learn a great deal more than at a larger company about how a company and its senior employees work. You sit in close proximity to (and within earshot of) not only your manager, but also senior management and more senior members of other teams in the company. There is great potential to learn by osmosis. Senior management in the UK (no experience of the US) are friendly and approachable. The work can be interesting if you allow it more space to breathe than is encouraged (huge emphasis on work speed though). You can also really improve your communication skills and learn a bit about how different countries conduct their business, from Nigeria to South Africa, Russia to Oman. Great scope for practising foreign languages. You get used to speaking to very senior people from across all sectors and geographies - this can only be a good thing for professional development. It can look good on your CV especially if looking for work at an international company. Coleman lives or dies by how its offices round the world cooperate on a daily/hourly basis - you are an integral part of that.
Cons
Office politics and distinctly dodgy man-management (for example reading emails and conversations between co-workers - of course this is a right of the company - it is office property etc, but middle management do not go about it quite the right way). The work can get tedious, there is a learning curve but after a while it is a struggle to find avenues for learning that do not compromise project turnaround-time and work can get repetitive - after a while you just send the same emails off to different people and it can be quite mind-numbing. This is one reason for the reasonably high employee turnover. The second reason is that there is not really a clear path for career development in the company. There are opportunities for moving into account management or sales roles and it has been known in recent years (and once in my time at Coleman), but it is not a regular occurrence due to the size of the office in London. Many realise this and leave after quite a short period (a year or so, sometimes sooner). This is a difficult problem to solve - perhaps some sort of vertical rotation system or some sort of salary progression system? The former would affect vertical specialisation though.... People have complained about pay, but I actually think it is reasonable for what the job is. The commissions are generally attainable (especially the lower-level targets) although this depends on the nature of your specialism and your projects..... This is a key problem: your projects, more than your actual performance, determine how well you are paid. Some projects are easier than others, naturally, but also some areas are easier than others too. This means that commissions are easier to hit for certain people purely by dint of them having been given an easier area to work in. Commission targets and pay are not dependent on the areas you work in. Targets are purely individual - the team targets matter to no one apart from middle management. This does not incentivise people to work together and creates resentment if some are given what are perceived to be easier projects. If all were judged by the team target (as well as other metrics to avoid free-riding/laziness), then overall the team would be much happier as this resentment would not exist. You also do not need a top-level degree or any financial expertise to work effectively and successfully here, unless you are hoping to move on quickly from entry-level to the higher echelons (there are problems with this, as I already said).
