Equilar Reviews

Pros

It's a good place to learn your professional skill. People you work with are nice and talent. Not need to do a lot of over time.

Cons

Compared with other tech companies in the valley. Equilar is definitely under paying its employees. It also treats employees in different department differently in terms of benefit.

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good work and value your high performing employees.

Pros

Good product in the marketplace
Respected in their industry
Profitable so they are not going to offer some stability
Co-workers are pretty cool

Cons

CEO lacks respect for his employees.
Most people seem to have a "Dave the CEO story" about him doing something unprofessional towards them.
Leadership seems to think saving a few dollars is worth hurting employee morale.
Well known fact that management scours spy ware and video to see what you are up to.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on making this company an employer of choice.
Just because you provide a job to someone doesn't automatically create loyalty...it is a two way street.
A good management structure appreciates the little people and doesn't dump blame on them.
Just be honest and stop trying to spin everything as positive.
Take a look at what other researchers and analysts make in Silicon Valley....compare that compensation to what you offer.
I could go on but I don't think anyone who could make a difference cares or they are too afraid to confront the CEO. Since saving your own bacon is the priority here.

Pros

The employees are great. Very smart and hardworking. Most are straight out of college with a few seasoned professionals here and there.

Cons

The company is run by fear mongering. Company is reactive. Sales has absolutely no freedom. Everything you do is ultra micromanaged. I was once text messaging someone on a break and I was locked in a conference room discussing what " I did wrong" for 30 minutes Emails are checked constantly on spyware. Everyone understands the plan - put in a year or two, get your experience and go to a real company where upper management acts like grown ups.

Advice to Senior Management

Face the facts: Equilar has a terrible reputation. What are you going to do about it?

Pros

Smart/talented people
Good culture but limited by scrutiny and rigidity
Good business model

Cons

Company pays well below market
Little opportunity for advancement
Company is managed from the top, communication between departments is poor
Don't expect to laugh in the office, All actions are monitored
Company hires great people but none of them stay long enough due to issues with top management
Expectations are lofty, unrealistic and likely to be changed if close to being achieved
Management is very controlling. completely inconsistent behavior except for being unreasonable.

Advice to Senior Management

A compensation research firm that needs to learn how to compensate. Value your employees.

Pros

it's a great opportunity to start with no experience and work your way up to a management level position. you are stretched to perform at your best consistently even if you don't want to. open environment allows you to interact with people in different departments.

Cons

tough culture if you're not the right fit. the performance expectations can be too high when you first start and the training isn't as consistent as I wanted.

Advice to Senior Management

improve on your communication to all your employees and spell out your expectations from day one so there is no confusion.

Pros

Opportunity to take on a lot of responsibility
Lots of energetic and fun co-workers
Lots of interesting things to learn each day

Cons

Since it's the first job for many employees, some unrealistic expectations of other co-workers.
I wish this job was in SF and not on the Peninsula

Advice to Senior Management

It was a fun two years and glad I started my career off on the right foot here.

Pros

- Working with a team of highly talented people
- Growing and profitable, a very rare combination
- Huge market opportunity
- Very little bureaucracy making it easy to excel and get things done
- Market leading products that clients love
- Located near Caltrain and provides free passes

Cons

- Company is resource constraint and needs to hire more people
- Environment can be demanding, especially during proxy season

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the start-up feel and don't be afraid to fail!

Pros

Flexible hours, supportive manager, convenient

Cons

repetitive work, can be difficult to meet minimum hours

Advice to Senior Management

Open later or on the weekends

Pros

I can't think of any unless you love sitting in front of a computer all day

Cons

Do not put this job down as a reference, the managers will screw you over if for some reason they did not like you

Advice to Senior Management

Don't really have any

Pros

Growing company that has never had layoffs.
Strongest products in market.
Very good reputation with writers and newspapers.
Little bureaucracy - move very fast to get things done.
Strong research machine.
Clients loved them.
CEO is very smart and dedicated but has a bad internal reputation.
Loan program for buying a place (not enough money though in the bay area).

Cons

Low end of pay at every level. Have overheard managers talk about how little they get paid too.
Very strict expectation of working hours with almost no flexibility.
Micro management to the extreme - no gmail, no even looking at your cell phone, everything we do on our computer is monitored including e-mails.
Revolving door for employees and managers - don't know if they quit or get fired but there's always a nice story.
Opportunity for advancement comes mostly from people leaving.
Not a single person has ever say "I love my job here."

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to be a place that people will think of building a long-term career at, provide more flexibility for balance.