Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Employee Reviews about "opportunity"

Pros

Excellent place to spend a moment of your career, great salary, wonderful colleagues.

Cons

Minimal opportunity for growth and a challenging work-life balance. 'Unlimited vacation time' is a joke.

Pros

There is a great mission and people believe in the mission. The workplace environment, the benefits, and the support given to employees in order to do their best work is amazing. There is ample opportunity to learn and grow even outside of your specific area of expertise.

Cons

Nothing unique. There are some people more difficult to work with than others. There is a perception that "I am so busy" which is self perpetuating and prevents people from being as effective as they can be in the moment.

Pros

-My manager gave me plenty of opportunities to grow my skillset but that wasn't the case with most positions. -Very professional, intelligent colleagues -Operations side of the work was very collaborative -Benefits -Perks and happy hours all over the campus were great for networking

Cons

-People will throw others under the bus often to get ahead. -Every mistake is scrutinized -You must be overqualified to get a job which can be unrewarding.

Pros

Great people, some of the smartest and most interesting coworkers I've ever had. A mission to believe in and opportunity to learn a lot about the work and partners' work. Fabulous benefits.

Cons

Can be very political. No established/obvious track to advance, which means it's all up to the manager if you get opportunities to grow and develop. People management has only more recently started to be considered important; there are lots of smart people with very specific skill sets hired because they're experts in a specific field, now expected to people manage.

Pros

Incredible opportunity to see how global systems work and where one can add value. Interactions with normative agencies, global private sector organizations and top notch academic institutions make this an amazing place to work. Add to that the potential impact that one can make with a significant amount of resources at you disposal is truly awesome.

Cons

The foundation has struggled to achieve a collaborative culture for many years now. While progress has been made in career and leadership development, the lack of a collaborative culture inhibits the potential progress that can be made. Another challenge is the amount of change in strategies. The work should be evaluated in periods of 5 - 10 years yet the strategies change almost yearly.

Pros

Excellent benefits; important work/mission statement

Cons

Few opportunities for growth and career development

Pros

Awesome mission and really cool opportunities to see famous speakers. Awesome campus. Really good pay and great benefits (free health care, 6 months maternity/paternity leave, 15% employer contribution to 401K. New CEO and management is great.

Cons

Very analytical. Need more coordinators & partnership experts. Work to simply processes is underway and needed.

Pros

Incredibly talented group of people. Endless opportunities to learn and be exposed to new topics and approaches. Felt valued by the team I worked with.

Cons

Can be very political at times and experience depends on the team and people you work with. A lot of egos to manage as everyone comes from a place where they are used to running the show.

Pros

- Being a part of the mission is inspiring - Benefits are great - It is challenging to work here, which I find very satisfying - We are given amazing resources to do our job - Flexibility - Opportunity to work on really interesting and engaging projects - Opportunity to work with gifted and passionate co-workers - It is always fun to answer the question 'where do you work?'

Cons

- We sometimes over think our solutions and fail to see the simple answer in front of us. - There are a small percentage of employees who lack humility and spread an unblanced amount of negative energy to those they work with. It appears that thier behaviour and attitudes are tolerated by management, which is frustrating. - We rely on temporary consultants for a lot of strategic work and thinking rather than our own internal long term resources. (This is improving)

Pros

The team was incredibly passionate, warm, and built a strong sense of community.

Cons

Management could have done a better job establishing career development opportunities and goal setting with assistants.