Pros
There are a handful of reasons why you would choose to work here in APC: 1) Depending on the position/project, it's better working in APC than being jobless. 2) You couldn't find (or are in the process of finding) any other job in the sector. 3) You failed to get a promotion with your previous employer and hope to leverage your seniority in APC, a small family run business. 4) You are a non-EEA citizen looking for work 5) Newly graduated PhD students/college graduates seeking some practical industry experience. 6) You are unambitious and are content with a below average salary. Pros: 1) Pension plan 2) Health insurance 3) Luas tax saver & cycle to work scheme 5) Cake Wednesday 6) Aesthetically pleasing office and lab space 7) Young work force
Cons
Employee exploitation: APC is a non-equal opportunities employer, that have hired people, without internal or public advertisement of positions, who were close to management. Unfortunately nepotism and favoritism is not a punishable offence in Ireland. Unfair dismissals and uncompensated overtime hours led to legal action being taken against APC by its own employees (and by NOVA UCD). High effort to reward ratio and terrible work/life balance has led to more than a 20 % turnover rate in 2018 . APC's long term strategy is to retain a handful of SMEs to up-skill fresh college students with BSc/BE/PhD degrees - rinse and recycle the students with fresh batch next year. Projects are the priority: There will be times where you will be worked to the bone to meet project deadlines. Such exceptional and flexible work ethic is under appreciated or outright unacknowledged - mistakes will be held against you by APC for the sake of retaining client relationship. HR is contracted by APC on a part-time basis with personal affiliations with CEO, therefore employee welfare is second priority to the longevity of the business. Plagiarism: There are individuals within APC whose sole purpose is to "stand out", in one form as a technical expert. They achieve this by probing experimental information or the basics of process knowledge from their SME colleagues, under the pretense of teamwork, and present the data as a work of their own or exclude the SME/contributing colleagues from critical client/vendor discussions. Salary imbalance: Currently engineers are paid more than scientists of the same level. Even the salary of senior scientists and engineers are different. Salary in general is below industry standards for a pharmaceutical CRO. Lack of professional competence: I invite any prospective senior interviewee or technical client to speak with a commercial/functional lead through a F2F or Skype video call to assess technical competence and capability before committing on doing any business. There are a handful of technical and team leads in APC who have such lack of basic process knowledge that having them speak and deal with clients is a project risk and an embarrassment to the tech op teams. Lack of integrity as management will lie to current and prospective clients to maintain business relationships. Racial divide in the work-force leading to racism at the office, You will be talked behind your back for raising issues that conflict with managements vision or whether your competence threatens the lack of competence of individuals affiliated with APC management. If you have read this far, then I applaud you because bullet points do not capture the injustice and lack of empathy in this company.