Covance Reviews

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

Pros – Flexible work hours, great people to work with, free coffee, challenging projects, cool instrumentation

Cons – Poor leadership, too much work and not enough people, too many meetings, fearful of failing assays, lengthy chain of custody processes

Advice to Senior Management – Moral was going down the tubes when I left. Management changed too much, team layouts changed too much, no room for advancement really. The last 3 years I worked there only got less than 2% annual raises which did not kick in until July, total joke.

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

Former Employee – worked at Covance full-time for less than a year

Pros – Benefits, breaks, interaction with fellow employees excluding most management were positive.

Cons – Noticed first the high stress levels of the employees. No one smiled at each other. My own management rarely acknowledged me. I was not recognized for good work done at all. My supervisor is known to be a bully.

Advice to Senior Management – Try a little harder to make your employees feel valuable. Communicate exactly what is expected from them. Be accessible. Make eye contact. In other words, respect your trainees as human beings.

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

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

Pros – Colleagues (non-management), salary, work-life balance

Cons – Discriminatory environment; females have little, if any, chance of promotion -- despite accomplishments.

Advice to Senior Management – Have you ever heard of a Golden Parachute? Try it.

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

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

Pros – -Good for inexperienced employees to gain experience
-Different projects for variety of indications
-Great people

Cons – -Low Pay
-High turnover
-High workload
-Some managers are overbaring

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to needs of the employees more to stop this hight utrnover it bad for the company overall

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

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

Pros – Good; Nice market reaction to the earnings conference call today. Well earned bounce setting a new 52 week high. Good team at the top of the empire.

Cons – Bad; Top heavy IT. Live and spend like there is no tomorrow. Bloated project budgets to hide inefficiencies, waste and incompetence. Shameful from many perspectives. Slow, destructive processes and combative style that is a bottleneck hindering the greater good. A contractor heaven though. Double the project length and double your profit, at the expense of the bottom line.

Advice to Senior Management – Ugly: Don't beat down some of your hardest working. Mention of grant rationalization raises questions. Avoid the temptation for bait and switch on equity grants for those that manage where the rubber meets the road. Doing so will poison the well with current and future hires.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – A good percentage of the staff here are goog people but if you are a political science major you will fit in well with the all the others and all the drama and rhetoric

Cons – i just received an email along with nearly 1000 others here that the compensation at my level was being "redesigned". That regardless of the contents of the offer letter i signed not that long ago, i am getting a 15% haircut in my overall compensation. That this will make the company more competitive I chose to come here not that long ago. The description i was given of the company, department and job do not match reality. I can deal with that. What I cannot accept is not being able to trust my employer. Do not come here!

Advice to Senior Management – You sow in one season, reap in another.

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

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

Pros – There are extremely intelligent and diverse people that would in the Global Site Services (US) department at this company. A myriad of life experiences, cultural differences, and educational opportunities (amongst peers) are ripe for the taking.

If you're a recent grad, this is a great place for you to meet people your age with similar interests. Much of this department is comprised of people in their 20s or early 30s that really enjoy getting to know their peers.

Cons – Management is horrible! There is no infrastructure for support, training, or accountability.

Too many women.

If you're a "not-so-recent" grad, the overwhelming age gap might be cause for alarm. Most people are either in their 20s or 40s.

Advice to Senior Management – Diversify the management team; there are too many women.

Create true mentoring and training programs; when new people are hired they are given training modules and SOPs to read. Why not have someone sit down them so that they learn what's expected of them.

Consistency - because there are no standardized processes, people are doing things in their own way. Information isn't consistent from one person to the next because everyone does things differently.

Project-Specific Onboarding - create a process by which people are added to new projects whereby they get all of the necessary information to be successful.

Be supportive and responsive - Take the time to make sure employees are not only engaged but happy with their level of engagement. Morale is an important aspect of professional success and, while several other metrics are being collected, this is not one of them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Covance full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good start for recently graduated MT. Good benefits

Cons – Too much hiring from within employee recommendations.

Advice to Senior Management – Restructure your hiring and promotion process.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – you get a paycheck with decent health benefits
most co workers are intelligent and educated

Cons – work is so repetitve it is boring, only favorites get chance for advancement. hours can be detrimental to work - life balance. hostile work environment exists in my department. work is better if you wear spike heels and super short skirts or have male parts, very poor management. 1 even sleeps on the job. employee evaluation is cumbersome and based on if the manager likes you instead of professionalism.

Advice to Senior Management – encourage consistent managing styles, have on-going management classes, hire more managers with experience in management

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Covance full-time for less than a year

Pros – Restaurants nearby, Free parking, free coffee, air conditioning in the office.

Cons – Where do I begin: Your lunches were literally timed for 30 minutes, you are constantly hovered over waiting to make the wrong move, unfriendly work environment, no career growth(dead end job), management is very hypocritical and is not afraid to show favoritism.

Advice to Senior Management – Rebuild the structure of your company, needs lots of tweeking from the ground up.

The environment was pretty unfriendly, and gave off the vibe of a cult.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend