Pros
The work, although tedious, can be rewarding. It gives you a chance to engage a variety of people from F500 executives, to managing directors, to former government policy advisers. While GLG cannot offer you (nor should you expect the job to) any quantitative skills to put on your resume, it does provide a great deal by way of professional development and soft skills. Moreover, the generalist nature of the research team means that you’ll get exposure across a variety of industry verticals (though you will by no means be an expert in any). Through that process, you’ll learn a lot about what industries are interesting to you, and what career you’d like to pursue long term – though 99% of the time on research, the answer will not be GLG.
Cons
For anyone considering a job in Research at GLG, it’s worth mentioning that you’ll find no intellectual stimulation in the day-to-day demands of the job. Though the topics and clients will vary in each request, you’re still essentially doing the same thing 10 times a day, on average. In terms of the hierarchy, this means that associates are typically responsible for the servicing of these clients, managed by research managers who have all but checked out (but are reaping the benefits and recognition of work done by their direct reports). A disinterested manager, coupled with a high turnover rate means that unless you’re extremely lucky when you start, you’re not going to have someone really invested in helping you grow professionally. The minutia of the work is compounded by a stream of new initiatives coming from an executive team throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, hoping it’ll stick and incredulous at the suggestion that it might not. Though no doubt meant to impress some standardization on the incoming class of associates, more tenured individuals are left exasperated by trying to meet arbitrary metrics aimed at quantifying an otherwise qualitative business. The reorganization of the business’ goals, as well as the new structure of compensation, has left a lot of people (particularly individuals with a strong track record of superior performance) feeling marginalized and looking for new opportunities.