Allergan Reviews in Irvine, CA

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Work life balance
- Flexible work schedules
- Campus accommodations (soccer field, baseball field, tennis courts, gym)
- Growth opportunities outside of normal job description

Cons – - Promotion opportunities are limited to once per year, company wide. If you don't get promoted then, you have to wait an entire year for the next opportunity. This makes employees severely discouraged about their career advancement opportunities if you don't want to wait an entire year just to be considered again.

- I've heard starting salaries are generally mid-range to mid-high, but after you're in, salary increases are very minimal

Advice to Senior Management – Don't have promotions based on a schedule. It's incredibly demoralizing to employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time

Pros – Compensation is great, but should be improved based on tremendous workload you're given. Nice campus, but could use updates. CEO knows how to make money and keep the company moving ahead. He knows how to make good decisions with product pipeline and purchasing new companies. There are lots of people who are intelligent, sharp and great to work with. Depending on the department you work in, if you stay the course and excel in your work and work hard, you will be rewarded.

Cons – They will work you to death! Grossly inefficient work processes and incompetent senior managers, directors, senior directors who got their positions based on friendships. Completely clueless management who cannot understand how to make things efficient. GDD consistently preaches things are getting better, but they are getting worse. Too many of these managers have been there so long and have no other real industry experience to understand how to make things work better. And, they don't want to listen to the individuals who have more experience and education than they do. Constantly make wrong decisions on new hires. People hired don't know anything about the job because they don't have the knowledge or expertise to back up their role. Major friction occurs because these people must be spoon fed on everything. Total waste of time and again, lack of efficiency. When you bring to management's attention, they don't want to hear it, make excuse after excuse and totally disregard your feedback. No support from the management team.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop putting nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals in senior level positions where they have to manage people and processes to run a business. They are science minded and have no clue how to manage workload or build efficient processes. For senior executives, get with the program. You need to change your work at home policy to keep up with the 21st century. Allergan boasts green initiatives, but yet refuses to change it. Some get to work from home and others do not, yet HR has zero tolerance on this topic. If you do for one, do for all! Get rid of people who don't cut the mustard! And stop pretending your management is good. I would say less than mediocre, at best.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Very nice weather, nice people.

Cons – Overloaded employees with low pay, bad culture, bad management, incompetent directors.

Advice to Senior Management – Promote science, promote talents, empower employees, pay employees at market.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than a year

Pros – good place to work and good environment

Cons – slow career growth in the industry

Advice to Senior Management – put more effort on increasing the pay range

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Allergan full-time for more than a year

Pros – Exciting products, good pipeline, good opportunity to learn

Cons – High volume work load; small annual increases (2% if doing a good job), good health benefits. Bad management.

Advice to Senior Management – Do not prevent internal candidates from apply for higher positions by capping them at a one-grade increase and 5%. Why bring someone in from the outside with no company experience and pay more?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Allergan full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Allergan is a solid company that offers a good benefit plan, as well as potential for bonuses for all levels. They treat their employees well and communicate thoroughly.

Cons – The company struggles to stay "flat" and there for leaves no room for development and growth. This goes for all levels of positions. It is a good transition job, but they do not hire within as much as they like to claim. Management does not seem to care about retaining talent in this way.

Advice to Senior Management – I would recommend reviewing your current development strategies as well as creating a more work-life balanced environment following market-place trends.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Overall Allergan is a great company. The top brass knows what they are doing and they do it well. The future of the company is bright and if you get into a well run department you are set. In the history of the company they have only done layoffs a few (less than 5?) times and they have been very minor. Benefits are excellent.

Allergan is a big name that looks great on a resume and that means you will get to work with some really bright people. You will probably be involved in some way on a drug or other product that is a big deal, because the company only bothers with things that are a big deal. It is a great experience to have.

Cons – The thing about Allergan is the quality of middle management, directors and VPs varies greatly between departments. That's why I say you roll the dice. Its hard to tell in the interview what kind of department you will be in.

I have seen leaders that demonstrated truly shocking levels of incompetence. I'm talking incompetence on the scale of our government's handling of hurricane Katrina. The kind of incompetence that makes new employees, frustrated with what they see going on, ask "Who is in charge around here???" Leaders having no idea that something is wrong, what that thing that's going wrong is, what a functioning organization looks like or what is needed to to get there. Utter cluelessness and a complete lack of awareness.

Then again your department might be wonderful. Its tough to tell.

Advice to Senior Management – If you see a department that continually has problems, can't meet deadlines, and gets low scores on surveys you might want to do some digging.

Current Employee – been working at Allergan as an intern for less than a year

Pros – big company means lots of perks. lots of nice people. lots of outdoor space.

Cons – seemed very competitive with lots of scheming and secrets between different research groups.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great benefits, talented individuals, dynamic company

Cons – Not as many opportunities for growth

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Allergan full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Leadership delegates and trusts you to make something great happen.
Strong consensus based culture for decision making; yet, firm is nimble and decisive.

Cons – Rarely hires people right out of skill. Prefers 5+ years of experience before recruiting into the firm.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to innovate and grow.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company