Mintel Reviews

Where to even start.. This is a company that rewards mediocrity and staying within prescribed boundaries, while trying to appear innovative and cutting-edge. Management and HR encourage a negative on-edge culture, where employees know that everyone is dispensable. This creates an impression that, as an employee, you are not worth listening to and do not have any value. Indeed, there are no attempts to solicit feedback from those lower down the company chain. Agile working and no assigned desks means people try to come in earlier and earlier in the morning to get the desks they want, which is (of course) better for the business, but illustrates the basic lack of respect for the worker-bees. What's more, HR has decided that it would be a great idea to rotate groups of desks/shuffle groups of people between different floors and the two existing offices every 3 months, creating an atmosphere of permanent uncertainty, as if to keep people on their toes. The company is very tight-fisted with certain groups of employees (analysts), yet showers others with perks (sales). Certain people travel internationally all the time - you hardly see them in the office. For the rest of the company, there is no budget even for a trade magazine subscription. This makes for an atmosphere of unfairness and disgruntlement. Though maybe constant cake may make people forget about the otherwise depressing environment. The open plan office/parties with booze are geared towards the youngest employees, but that won't make them forget about the absence of a good pension scheme or any other benefits for that matter. Plenty of others have also mentioned no/very stingy pay rises. No career progression (the newly created hierarchy of research positions is a joke, to say the least). The business model of hiring graduates on low salaries to do research for 1-2 years until they leave for greener pastures has worked so far (though I do wonder how much money is being wasted on all the hiring and training), but Mintel should seriously consider whether or not this is a sustainable model if they want to be a leading market research company. At the moment, and much like many of the other MR agencies in Central London, Mintel is a company that's good for a recent grad for 1-2 years tops, not a long-term career building opportunity.

The salaries are abysmal, benefits are non-existent. They do not invest in their employees. No promotions, no training, no rewards/incentives to do good work. Unless you're in sales. You're basically trapped in the office even though many of the jobs require you to be knowledgeable about the world at large. There is a complete lack of understanding of modern day work practice. Management is completely clueless and incompetent - Internal people who have stuck it out long enough or people who are good at sales. Barely anyone that understands research, innovation, food, etc in management. They aren't experts or leaders, just cogs in the machine. Nobody really interacts in the office unless forced to by the parties which are supposed to substitute for real benefits. I would've stayed but I feel I had to leave. It was the best job with huge potential and by the time I left I couldn't care less.