Chemonics International Reviews
Updated May 27, 2022
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Found 555 of over 648 reviews
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
Pros
- "Can be a great opportunity to get yellow fever and other expensive but necessary vaccines for intercontinental travel." (in 29 reviews)
- "Lots of opportunities, good training programs and room to move between regions and project." (in 26 reviews)
- "Colleagues were great (for the most part), and are some of the smartest and most dedicated you'll find." (in 19 reviews)
Cons
- "You can work hard and long hours but that alone doesn't give you a chance to be promoted." (in 19 reviews)
Pros & Cons are excerpts from user reviews. They are not authored by Glassdoor.
Ratings by Demographics
This rating reflects the overall rating of Chemonics International and is not affected by filters.
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- Current Employee, less than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Very interesting work, intelligent staff, good work-life balance
Cons
None I can think of
- Current Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
The mission and work of this company is great. The projects we work on are truly life changing. Company is great for career growth as well. Working here you will always be promoted and encouraged to take on new tasks that help your career.
Cons
1. Pay is lower than market value. Other competitors view employees here as “ high value works but low pay” . Once you accept an offer here just know you will make lower thank the market value. 2. Poor management leadership. Because the company is knowing for promoting from within it is a guaranteed you’ll become a manger or senior director eventually. This company will train you to do the work but doesn’t train managers on how to actually lead and treat people with respect. The emotional intellect tends to lack. 3. Everyone is overworked and Upper management always seem to be complaining and passing their frustration to junior staff in toxic ways. 4. You’ll need to have two jobs. One as a PMU member and two as a new business team member. Yet get paid way below market value 5. No 401k matching
Continue reading - Former Employee, more than 5 years★★★★★
Amazing opportunities for mid-level folks; just be sure to stand up for yourself!
RecommendCEO ApprovalBusiness OutlookPros
Because Chemonics is so big, they offer amazing opportunities to entry level and mid-level staff. You can get a lot more responsibility (and more interesting assignments) if you just ask - and have a supportive supervisor! It's a company full of "type A" go-getters, so you better be ready to throw down if you want to stand out.
Cons
I found there to be some pretty big gender discrepancies in packages/compensation, particularly in the supply chain field (a male-dominated field, traditionally). Though no longer officially basing salaries on biodatas, total compensation packages between men and women in similar positions were quite different in my experience. When brought to the organization's attention, there was no appetite for an equity adjustment.
Continue reading - Current Employee, less than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
You get exposure to how USAID funded projects are managed
Cons
The job posting for entry-level states that the person must have at a minimum a bachelor's degree however, they hire mostly people who have Master's Degree and more years of experience than what is requested. I am sure they know that the people who will apply are people who have graduated from their Master's (usually in International Development or Policy) but they still advertise the senior associate position as having a minimum requirement of a Bachelor's degree. The work you will be doing is basically assistant work. They say that they are competitive among other firms in the same industry but the truth is that they are competitive against non-profits.
- Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
This is truly a great company doing a fantastic service for the world providing humanitarian aid, the people that I work with are awesome there dedicated and their passionate about their job, our long hours that we do occasionally have to put in is done out of love to save people
Cons
Nothing really Much, There is a lot of bureaucratic red tape to get folks hired salaries approved
- Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
Some of the best and brightest co-workers you'll find are at Chemonics.
Cons
This company's recruitment structure is designed to attract bright, intelligent Type A personalities who are passionate about trying to make a difference - and then working them until they break, knowing that there are thousands more waiting in line behind them to fill their place. They will take advantage of your passion for improving the world, until you finally can't take it anymore. Corporate systems are inefficient and administratively burdensome, and leadership makes no effort to invest in sufficient staff input when developing these systems - then expects staff to deal with the fallout when the systems don't meet project needs. Project management teams are chronically understaffed, but still expected to deliver outputs as if they aren't. Bonuses and monetary awards are focused on winning new projects, but once those projects are won implementation quality is put onto the backs of young professionals struggling to pay rent. Many directors are too focused on travel and new business to provide quality oversight (with some notable exceptions of phenomenal directors), with project managers carrying the heaviest burden despite not being compensated appropriately. Every few years they provide 'equity adjustments' when they realize staff are making below median market rates - but then staff are denied annual increases for years afterwards because HR and Ops teams consider equity adjustments a 'raise' - completely negating the purpose of an equity adjustment and placing those staff right back under market rates within a year. Any raises or promotions I've received have been negated by the increasing monthly costs I incur for therapy for stress and burnout each month. Chemonics is not worried about staff retention, they'd rather deny a raise and have you quit and then spend tens of thousands more than your raise value on recruiting your replacement. Run for your life, multiple therapists have referred to this company as the most toxic work environment they've ever heard described.
- Current Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Good benefits (health insurance, dental, 401k, etc) Good office Great people Do a good job trying to respect personal work/life boundaries
Cons
Sometimes expect you to work more than 40 hours a week to meet deadlines Very little upward mobility If you are funded by a grant, raises are capped at very low percentages (2-4%) annually
Continue reading - Current Employee, more than 3 years★★★★★
Pros
Great learning organization for entry-level professionals
Cons
Easy to have staff overwhelmed with multiple requests
- Former Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Great entry level project management experience and you learn a lot about working on USAID funded project.
Cons
I second all of the cons already listed on Glassdoor. I looked at Glassdoor before working at Chemonics and thought oh have these folks don’t know how to manage their time. Nope!! Chemonics is a toxic work culture. It is normal to work 50hr + weeks. No work life balance and the work load is unmanageable. Your brain will be left spinning when you log off and on the weekends, you will never not think about work. They keep problematic Directors who cause good managers and associates to leave. It’s normal to be an acting manager for several months.
Continue reading - Current Employee, more than 3 years★★★★★
Pros
The people there are great to work with. They're innovative, thoughtful, and encouraging.
Cons
The only real downside is the low salaries for people with less experience.
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Chemonics International Reviews FAQs
Chemonics International has an overall rating of 3.6 out of 5, based on over 648 reviews left anonymously by employees. 73% of employees would recommend working at Chemonics International to a friend and 73% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has decreased by -2% over the last 12 months.
73% of Chemonics International employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews. Employees also rated Chemonics International 2.9 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.7 for culture and values and 3.8 for career opportunities.
According to reviews on Glassdoor, employees commonly mention the pros of working at Chemonics International to be benefits, coworkers, career development and the cons to be senior leadership, culture, management.
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