Will drain you of confidence and personality while expecting lots and paying little.
Pros
I met one or two friends there, if you have no aspirations or desires to life it may be worth trying
Cons
I joined GPL in 2015 and worked there for two years, until I couldn't handle it anymore. I came in a confident young graduate with hopes and tried to see past the criminally low wage. I regret doing that for the following reasons: For your first 2 months you will do nothing, you take time to get up on systems, during this time you will be ushered from meeting room to meeting role and be half taught about the role, 90% of it won't make sense due to poor explanation or care from staff. Soon you will be placed in a client based role, very very high responsibility with no reward, you are constantly reminded of how poorly arranged the client relationship is. Management will not trust you no matter how long you've worked there, they have their favourites (mostly females as the managers are 100% female and disgruntled about their lives/jobs as it is) You will be called up on things that are so minuscule that you didn't even consider it bad behaviour, this is to cut you of any personality, you are to be exactly as they want you to be. Shocking gossip and bully culture in the Belfast office, I've heard things about people, both from manager and co-workers, about their social lives and relationships that I don't care about, management and staff thrive on this. Often you'll be asked to work your lunch in 'lunch and learn sessions, which have nothing to do with your job. There are 0 progression opportunities, there are 3 groups, tech and lead associates (paid sub 20k for 25k plus worthy work) team leads (paid sub 21k for a lot of responsibility that they aren't trained for) and managers (you won't make this bracket they were all mainly hired early on in the company / when it was very small and don't know anything about the actual work you do - you are a number) They also really think small 'treats' such as Tesco brand cake, lidl lunches and an air hockey machine make up for the poor working conditions. Sometimes management gets bored and decides to clamp down on something completely irrelevant and silly just to instil fear to the staff. Anymore who I've met who has worked at GPL has had a better life since leaving and before they worked there - it drains you of self confidence and self worth. For your own good and sanity don't get swept in.
