Netlight Reviews

Long hours and long days, not for parents or people with other things in their lives Even though the management never says so directly, they imply that you should contribute to the company (on your own time) to be able to level. You are expected to invoice your client 100 % of your normal working hours throughout a month. You are expected to participate in events at the company, but since you are putting 100 % of your working hours on your client, the time you put on the company is your own spare time. Normal average hours of extra time is 5-10 hours a week for a person at Manager level. Most employees at junior levels put in about the same or more. Since you "have to" put in these hours in the company, very few parents last more than a few years in the company. Not that good pay, if you look at what you are actually getting in return for what you are putting in Since you put in a lot of hours in the company one would expect the pay, including pension and benefits to be good. The salary is OK, however, the pension is an absolute minimum, the PC and other tools you need to work are the cheap ones and any expense, like phone bills, dinners bills when talking to adepts etc, are undoubtedly questioned. And this is in a company that made more than 30 % profit?! One could expect that a company like this would have a good program for buying shares in the company, and yes, there is a program for it, but no, it is not that good. Not so open, no Netlight brags for being a flat, open company with possibilities for the ambitious. However, since there are no formal ways of communication, the information does not flow as free as the upper management might believe (or wants the employees to believe). And it does not matter how ambitious you are since it is more important that you ally with the "right" people rather than do what is good for the company and the employees. This has turned into a culture where the ideas that are controversial for the company are not allowed to be discussed in the open, e.g. who are the owners of the company and how much do they make from the profit of the company. Hiring and firing Netlight is very ambitious when it comes to hiring. The Talent Search department calls every single one they can find in LinkedIn and other channels and they want to talk to everyone, so don't get too excited if you have been contacted by them. The hiring process is fast and smooth, as mentioned above. However, the firing, or rather getting-people-to-quit process is longer and not so smooth. I have witnessed several employees being maneuvered and treated in a way that they finally saw no other way out of the situation but to quit. There is a paragraph in your contract that says you are not allowed to start working at your customer (employed or as consultant). That is fine, but you are not allowed to work with _any_ of Netlight's clients. You are not allowed to work start a company with other former employees of Netlight for two years as well. When you stop working at Netlight, you are not given an official farewell, not even an email that says that you have quit. The people who work around you are not given the information, unless you tell them. Do I need to add that there is no Alumni function at Netlight? The cult The positive spirit in Netlight and how good many of the consultants are is a positive thing, as mentioned above. However, when some ideas are not allowed to be discussed, when things are done the wrong way (even legally wrong), when things are done "the Netlight way" and it is not allowed to be questioned, the bad part of the cult shows. I was often met with the phrase "that is the way we do it at Netlight" even though I knew that that way was not legal to do. I have experienced situations where the masses (the employees) have been lied to just to keep appearance up and to promote a up-and-comer in the company.

- Lousy pay; the house takes much for itself compared to what you get. - Sect-like. If you like being involved in a sect, then Netlight might be your thing. They got their rituals and strong values. You need to be a believer. It's all in or all out. - They wont' work with partner companies. - Age discrimination: They only hire under 40 really. According to the official guide they hire persons with 1 - 6 years of experience. With more experience, the people would be too expensive to Netlight. And also they wouldn't enjoy being there, as it's so sect-like. They look for new flexible people, with small amount of experience, but not enough to know better. - Their internal projects are nightmares. - Bad benefits. It's just that other concultancy houses have better. Here, you have no free lunches (they pay small part of it though), no free commuter tickets, only internal courses. No certificates, or external training. There can be some rare exceptions. Only benefits you have are occupational health service, mobile phone (for you to borrow), laptop and small portion of your lunches will be compensated. - Superficial: The company is very superficial in many ways. The employees only focus on the work, and never speak about their lives outside of work. And it's not their fault, it's because of the culture they have there. They don't know each other at all really. At netlight, you have a strong separation of work and your life. The employees live a double life almost. - Lack of self-criticism: In their minds, Netlight is always perfect, at least almost for them. The threshold for complaining about something in the company is very high, since the culture is "everything is awesome". Even the reality can be sometimes very different. They have strong values, which they won't never compromise. So once you get there, you better believe in the values they have. - Sect-like following: This was one of the most irritating features the company had. They follow so blindly, and never question the values and rules they are given. Or if they do, those cases are not core matters. Try questioning their core values. - Hierarchical: They advocate no bosses, but in reality, each one of them has a boss. I think it just comes from a human nature. But they try to fight against it, and they are failing in it. Because they really do have a lot of hierarchies there, many different levels for you to "grow" for example. In theory, you have no boss, but in reality, you do. - Unpaid overtime: At Netlight you will have to work overtime that is not paid to you. They say it's not compulsory, but that's not true in practise. Most of it is. And besides, it's so sect-like that if you won't go, you will feel bad, as there is social pressure to go. You need to do peer-reviews of your colleagues on your free-time, and you will not get paid for it. And those can take a long time. In addition, you need to participate in their events that occur after paid work. You can choose not to go, but then you will be left out from the group. (not officially of course, but in practise). They argue that you will learn and grow from the extra work you do, so that's why they don't need to pay you any money, as growing and learning is your benefit. So the deal is: They take the money, you grow and learn on your spare time. I say crap. Sure, one can grow and develop his skills by doing extra work, but not giving money for the extra work is just wrong, and also, other concultancy houses do give money for that, so why should you choose Netlight? - Untangible core values: It is hard to understand their core values in practise, as they are so badly defined and interleave seriously. In Netlight, you need to really live with values every day, as everything is reflected through them. This is difficult as they are so unclear, so people struggle with this there every day! - Closed salary policy: Their salary policy is open on the lower levels, but closed on the higher levels. From partner level to up it is closed. They advocate open salary models, yet their own salary model is closed on the upper levels. And it is closed for a reason: to not to show the lower levels that how much money they earn, since it's much more than the lower level. And, it's money the lower level has really created. They are hypocritical on this very issue. - Do not underestimate Netlight. It abuses young talents who don't yet know better, and makes them to work overtime with lousy salaries. Business-wise, Netlight will do great in the future, partially because of the abuse they conduct.