Covance Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Covance full-time

Pros – Benefits are fair, flexibility with work schedules

Cons – Antequated IT systems/equipment, promotes growth opportunity (lateral & upward) but doesn't happen any longer (hire many from the outside for roles that could be filled with current employees), Senior Leadership

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in IT and Grow your bench (invest in your current employees).

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 more than a year

Pros – Great Benefits!
Good pay, lots of overtime available (although often required)
Great experience builder for anyone fresh out of college looking for entry level work
Much of the work is very interesting and rewarding
Doing great work generally for a good cause

Cons – Atrocious work/life balance
NOT an easy position to have with a family life, unpredictable and long hours
Work can often be very monotonous and boring
Extremely stressful at times, massive turn-over at this position
Team instability from turnover and high stress with training new members often leads to a depressed and overworked atmosphere.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep teams together by limiting turnover. A stable team environment would vastly improve work atmosphere.

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

Pros – Lots of opportunities to learn new skills, great compensation and benefits. Company values your education and has tuition reimbursement. You start off with 21 or more days of paid vacation time.

Cons – Can have long hours and high stress depending on position and department. Toxicology is especially busy right now and experiencing high turnover.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend more time talking to the people actually conducting the research - inlife technicians in the vivarium. We make your business possible.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Great for entry level positions. Good overtime pay. Vibrant city location. School reimbursement along with other benefits.

Cons – Once you've learned the skills, the job can be boring and monotonous. This can leave you feeling boxed in and limited. As with other companies, politics and who you know matters. Work : Life ratio sucks and can be unpredictable.

Advice to Senior Management – Increase cohesiveness of how technicians are treated across teams.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – -Benefits were good
-PTO was fair
-Good work-life balance (for most)
-Met some of my best friends at work (totally unexpected)
-Great resume builder

Cons – -NO room for professional advancement unless you "run with a certain crowd"
-Most supervisors and department managers are med techs or have general education degrees with no real scientific training
-NOT flexible with educational advancement UNLESS you're an aspiring MT (other degree programs i.e. MBA, PhD are not supported)
-Employee review structure is designed to promote departmental competition and distracts team unity

Advice to Senior Management – -Utilize the talents of your employees
-Restructure the employee reviews for bonuses to be fair and maintain department morale
-Support individual growth and development (not everyone aspires to be a MT terminally)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Covance

Pros – Lots of opportunity to move to different positions.

Cons – The pay is not very good for entry level.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Covance full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – -fantastic helpful team-oriented coworkers
-flexible hours in some departments
-very interesting work
-good benefits

Cons – -supervisors and lower management poorly trained and ineffective, with singular goal of making upper management happy (regardless of the effect on everyone below)
-culture of fear (management induced)
-monthly roller coaster to "make budget or else"
-little to no employee recognition or appreciation (regardless of excess time worked, quality, quantity, effort, etc)
-depressed environment with high turnover
-6% of workers selected annually to fulfill quota in order that bonuses and raises can be witheld
-philosophy is to hire recent grads and work them until they burn out, and then replace them

Advice to Senior Management – Get managers and supervisors who want to manage, and then train them. Don't allow them to rule with bullying fear based tactics. Reconsider burnout philosophy and make attempts to reduce turnover. Take advantage of the benefits that employee longevity can bring to achieving overall satisfaction and success of a group.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Covance

Pros – Good strategic management
Excellent comp package

Cons – Increased size creating some silos

Yes, I would 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 3 years

Pros – Work with good (non management) people, feel like your job makes a difference to society as a whole.

Cons – Inept middle management makes daily work painful. Ineffective management style is fostered and encouraged by upper management.

Advice to Senior Management – reward performance and discourage gossip. please leave your bad mood at home.

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 more than 10 years

Pros – Good benefits, some caring individuals, a good place to learn.

Cons – Hard work, stress, and an overused old system to keep labor costs down (8% must be labeled as sub par and at risk of loosing their job). The environment has gone from we are all in it to succeed to I must do whatever I can to look good, which may not benefit the team or company overall. Senior management are accountants with no vision or or real team building skills or ideas.

Advice to Senior Management – Hold yourself to the same expectations that others are held to. It is time for a new vision and leader.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend