Advisory Board Reviews in Washington, DC Area

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – Culture, fast-pased, fast growing cutting edge in health care

Cons – work life balance, senior management does not operate as as stated in organization mission

Advice to Senior Management – improve compensation to retain high talent employees, make promotions criteria clear

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – Good work/life balance.
Free food/alcohol fairly regularly.
Good people among lower ranks, friendly and collegiate environment.
Office is in a nice area; Georgetown

Cons – low pay for the amount of work expected
training was uniform and not applicable to everyone
glorified secretary/telemarketer role, basic skills that plateau quickly
disconnect between management and associate ranks, do not provide helpful guidance, focus too highly on numbers
ridiculously high turnover rate, seemed at least 1 person was quiting every week, ranks are filled with college grads who just need a job

Advice to Senior Management – Just because a marketer is a good salesperson doesn't make them a good manager. The same goes for middle management as well. Managers serve more of a reporting function than actually providing useful guidance and feedback. Too numbers driven with little attention on employee retention at the lower ranks. Apply your own best practices and employee retention inwards, it's ridiculous to have so many people quitting constantly.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – Young and aggressive workforce. Lot of opportunity for growth. Good compensation.

Cons – Not much offsite technology training provided by the firm.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good employee engagement that you have had going at the firm.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Advisory Board

Pros – They are flexible with time off if needed. No micromanaging. Flexibility to come and go as needed. Friendly coworkers in other departments.

Cons – Terrible new hire training program. They prefer style over substance. Expectations are not conveyed up front or in a clear and precise manner. Don't plan on understanding your product - there is very little focus on content, only on presentation style and answering questions 'the right way'. The require all new hires to be 'passed off' on their product presentation, which is reasonable, but their expectations, training, and content are abysmal. They sell best practice research but don't implement best practices themselves. Don't move or relocate until you are through this sign off process. In my first sign off they sprung questions and objections to my product that I had never heard before and b/c I did not answer them in the style they like they did not 'pass me'. They never gave research or material to read or have people who would take time to explain the meat of the challenges. They give you a script to memorize, much of which is out of date, they have different training managers telling you how to answer questions differently and in conflicting content and style - lack of leadership in training team/program. New hires are also given poor territories to start off with. They do not let you choose which product you are selling. If you didn't understand something, they expected you to ask questions and fight for time on senior level calendars - when you finally did get 30 minutes they were very unfocused in training on what mattered, often going off on detailed tangents that did not help explain content. Very high turnover because management and leadership is very poor, expectations are not inline with market needs, many products do not sell well, they compare all marketers and their results to the top sales reps who work exclusively with member hospitals year after year - all other sales reps rotate territories each year making it impossible to benefit from relationships you build in first year of sales.

Advice to Senior Management – Set strong leadership over training program. Align your thoughts, ideas, and content so managers and leaders are not regularly contradicting each other. Give new hires better product specific content. Teach what objections are in the market place and how to overcome those objections. Sit down with each new hire and walk them through the presentation and point out where much of the objections occur and the answers or solutions the product/company provide to work through that. Better communication in all aspects of team. Focus on substance not style. If you don't have substance then style doesn't amount to much. Hopefully the leadership team and management learns from their current and past mistakes to improve sales (or as they call it 'marketing') team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – - Smart, motivated colleagues
- Attachment to core values
- Emphasis on community service
- Opportunities for growth and advancement

Cons – =Often silos within the organization - difficulty to keep up with everything going on in various parts of the business.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – Friendly, fun and people are kind

Cons – need a lot of time to get promoted and needed a good supervisor.

Advice to Senior Management – Please improve the management system within the company and department

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – -tend to hire a certain cookie-cutter prototype: recently college-grads, ambitious, intelligent, goal-oriented, outgoing, and attractive
-great people and young work environment
-incentives: happy hours, team events/outings, Marketing Associate trips

Cons – Your success in this position is completely situational. If you are given a good territory (not geographical--based on the relationship a hospital has with ABC, i.e. how much money they spend annually on memberships), have a successful and helpful marketer, and a supportive manager, you will do well. If all of these aspects do not align, it is a constant struggle to meet your monthly goals.
--Promotion is based on quantitative success (your monthly goal number), not qualitative.
-health-care market is very saturated and cold calling hospital executives does not yield high results
-the position is a lot of work for barely any money
-managerial incompetence
-high turnover rate
-constant treadmill; at the end of each month you start back at 0

Advice to Senior Management – Give the marketing scheme some serious thought. Spend some time/money properly training a managerial staff. Offer monetary incentives or commission rather than happy hour incentives.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Advisory Board

Pros – Very flexible about work/life balance (e.g. they allow you to schedule dentist, doctor, other appointments during a working day, they have 20 vacation days + 10 company-wide days even for entry level staff, etc), intelligent colleagues, robust promotion mechanism

Cons – Not as idealistic as they make themselves out to be, a bit tedious/repetitive at times, upper management doesn't always seem too interested in the junior staff.

Advice to Senior Management – Give more attention to the junior staff - it will decrease your huge turnover! Of the 12 Research Associates that were there when I joined, only three were still with the company 1.5 years later.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – If you are a recent college grad, ABC is a great place to start. Yes they will pay you minimal entry level salary but compensate you with happy hours, free bottles of champagne, and motivate you with company-paid trips 2x per year. The work is basic and not difficult, and you will gain some exposure and greater understanding of healthcare if you take an active approach. If you play their game, say the right things, and hit your numbers you are considered a great employee.

Cons – You're going to start out as a glorified telemarketing administrative assistant. Like any company, you have to start somewhere, but be prepared to have you success judged by a number. Your immediate manager, called a Chief of Staff, will likely range in competency. Some are excellent at their jobs and provide terrific guidance, management, and career support. Others should not be in the position and if you are struggling to hit your goals, you can expect to be walking a fine line.
ABC is a very "good-ol-boys" club. If you're not part of the after-hours parties, you're usually considered an outsider and will be judged as such.

Advice to Senior Management – Eliminate your ineffective chiefs of staff. Involve Marketing Associates in more of the business development process, instead of sticking them to their outreach and visit numbers. Get rid of the happy hours and just compensate your employees better. Offer an exit interview to possibly learn from the current in-and-out style of your employees literally joining then leaving.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Advisory Board

Pros – Lots of opportunities to grow in your career if you are a strong performer; work with smart people; interesting work

Cons – Long hours; poor training/mentorship; too much short term decision making at times but it's getting better

Advice to Senior Management – Invest more in innovating existing products and building a world class development shop; invest more in training employees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend