Two categories of cons: The first is for you as an employee, the second is for the company more broadly (which will impact you as an employee).
Category 1
-WARNING: THE TITLE OF THIS JOB IS EXTREMELY MISLEADING. If you take this role you are NOT a research analyst, but rather a recruiter who occasionally does some very shallow research when the need arises. In the interview, you do a "value chain" breakdown for a given industry but rarely actually break down a value chain for an industry in practice.
-You are a call scheduler. Get used to it. This means that 10000 and 1/2 factors outside of your control can impact how many calls you set up in a given month and yes it will affect your bonus if things don't go right.
-You don't make overtime. This would be fine if the company were serious about its commitment to "work life balance," but when they want you to work on weekends /stay late so that they can hit their bonuses, they struggle to show "what's in it for you" if you are (remarkably) not naturally motivated by how many calls you set up for clients.
-Instead of overtime, there is the world's most convoluted bonus structure aimed at getting you to prioritize short-term call-generation quotas that are evaluated by each month. Makes you competitive with everyone you work with and really brings out the worst in people.
-Many people you work with are really just not that bright. I had a book on my desk and an AVP who noticed said "wow! You read a lot of books!" (emphasis on books). Someone else thought Yemen was in Central Europe. And guess what? They do very well at the job. Proves that you don't need brains to do well.
Category 2
-Mismatch between client best interests and personal target hitting. Clients (at least in funds) don't care about doing a 10 mediocre calls with you a week or 5 good ones, as long as they're the right ones. But 10 calls brings in more revenue for the company so guess which one you're incentivized towards.
-Obsession with numbers in an industry that is extremely hard to quantify. Metrics for everything. Targets and goals by which you are evaluated, 80% of which are outside of your control ---> makes for some dumb strategy / strategic thinking.
-Lol @ compliance to "prevent private information from being shared on the calls."
-Sales / account mgmt is as though someone copy/ pasted the same low-IQ white guy 20 times and put some khakis on him. Except for like 2 people or so.
-Culture of competition breeds gossip on all levels of management, which makes for a "cliquey" high school culture at times with no transparency. Extremely frustrating.
