Pros
Some impressive people and a (on the whole) smart and professional workforce. Impressive client list and a responsibility for assisting their research process so success is personally rewarding. Internal career progression relatively speedy (18-24 months per step up), but as previously noted in other posts, seems less on skill or performance than on a willingness to subscribe to being a 'GLGer'. Growth potential still v large. Primary research invaluable to a lot of the buy-side and still believe GLG does it better than competition.
Kontras
The message from executive management is that GLG strives to be the best place in the world to work for. That is either a blatant lie designed to 'sell' the place to employees or is a unbelievable lack of self-awareness. General sense that employees are under-paid, micro-managed and over-worked (for the pay). The job is marketed as an opportunity to work in 'research' for financial services clients. The job entails doing repetitive, monotonous and administrative tasks under high pressure to tight deadlines. This work is then audited anonymously by management. In my experience office morale is low and employees feel undervalued. As competitive pressures force GLG to become speedier (and less thoughtful) weight is put on phone calls, efficient project management and standardised email communication. There is less and less weight/value put on 'content' or being a thought partner to a client. The number of calls on a project counts for far more in performance metrics than thoughtful, in-depth knowledge of the client's research topic. No client would ever hire their research professional to actually be in their investment team- they view us as having access to a database of experts who we keyword search. Not far off. Primary research in the form of conversation with experts is actually a very valuable asset to clients- but they do not view the GLG team as having the same intelligence, or 'thought-partner' type skills as they do the sell-side. Not the stepping stone to a role in finance it claims to be. The 'glorified call centre' type posts left by other employees/former employees is hard to defend. Especially so with new performance metrics and strategy set by exec management.