Pros
Employees are quite knowledgeable and forthcoming, as well as friendly. This is a well-educated, experienced bunch of people. ORISE does great work in the placement of young, recently-graduated M.S. and Ph.D. degreed people in research positions that will advance their careers. Pay is good. Diversity is the name of the game. As an example, ORAU sets itself apart from the private sector as one of the few organizations left that does not practice covert age discrimination in the hiring process.
Cons
Upper management is primarily comprised of baby-boomer lifers, who in the salient words of Douglas Coupland, are “rusting above” everyone else. Not only is there obfuscation of business motives by the “power mist,” there is also the rather dysfunctional administration support (namely the cumbersome HR fiefdom), groaning with resistance to implementation of 21st century business management practices which would slash the bloated overhead. The end result is wasteful duplication of effort and the inefficient use of valuable talent at the organization’s fingertips – as everyone desperately protects their little shred of turf from the appearance of irrelevancy.