Chemonics International Reviews

Pros

You will learn a lot. Chemonics invests heavily in employee training (especially in areas of financial and contract management).

Cons

Need to start at the bottom and work your way up. There’s a strong sense of “earning your stripes”, which often means you start from the bottom, regardless of your previous experience. -poor pay and vague payment processes. The organization has a tendency to discuss pay ranges only once you’ve accepted an offer, which means (given that the pay is pretty low) you’ll inevitably be disappointed in your pay rate.

Pros

The company has a very diverse culture where you adapt very quickly.

Cons

The salaries for entry-level is way lower.

Pros

-Great people and mentors -Opportunities to work on a variety of different types of work -Company has a strong reputation in the development space -Benefits are decent but I have heard of better plans elsewhere -If you are passionate about development and making the world a better place, you will feel fulfilled working here knowing that your efforts are for more than a mere paycheck (although pay is still important of course) -Employee owned means there is an opportunity to for grievances to be communicated and the employee stock is great too

Cons

-Work life balance is verbally supported and laid out in policy but is not uniform across teams. There is a lot of important work to be done and not all managers will defend your work/life balance. I was lucky in that my supervisor worked hard to ensure I had a good balance but I've heard horror stories of overwork from other teams -A lot of the negative aspects one will hear from Chemonics are due to USAID creating a low-budget industry and granting fairly cheap contracts. This is not entirely USAID's fault as they are given a small percentage of the federal budget given their mission objectives. This in turn is due to a generally low appetite in the American public/Congress for foreign aid. If you are a proponent of development, spread the word.

Pros

Most of the workers are caring individuals and have a high level of emotional intelligence. We've been working from home since the pandemic started and schedules are extremely flexible to support family situations. Senior leadership is more transparent than I've seen at other organizations. They will try to promote from within first, for most positions. The execs listen to staff and have made a number of process and benefits changes based on survey results and feedback received. For example, there is a huge initiative around diversity and inclusion to make an already good environment an even better one.

Cons

Because they promote from within, some of the skillsets of the functions/individuals are behind industry standards and this has resulted in a number of failed internal deployments. The people who do bring industry experience are sometimes shunned because they don't have a long Chemonics tenure and later made to feel guilty about their salary, even if the salary is what the industry is paying (or is lower) on average for someone with the same years and type of experience in the same role, etc. I took a paycut to come to Chemonics because of our wonderful mission but despite this am made to feel guilty about my pay, and am now capped out per the recent job realignments. There's also an issue with professional development at the senior leadership level. There seems to be little to no constructive feedback given to some individuals on the exec team, as their (negative) behaviors continue year after year and they are not held accountable to improve. Similar behaviors at lower levels would result in potential termination/performance improvement plans. Finally, this is the first organization I've joined that has resulted in a feeling that my skills have stayed stagnant and will start to lag behind industry standards soon. There's a lack of innovation and opportunity within some of the divisions and some senior leaders aren't pleasant to work with, nor are they open to change.

Pros

Great professional development resources and benefits, exposure to USAID contracting mechanisms, access to techincal carreaGreat professional development resources and benefits, exposure to USAID contracting mechanisms, access to technical career development.r deveopment.

Cons

Work/life balance, pay, retirement benefits, workflow bureaucracy, and leadership styles on the downside of things.

Pros

Good salaries, benefits, work from home

Cons

Long hours, work life balance

Pros

Exposure to project management tasks and USAID projects Focus on innovation is very impressive

Cons

Overworked and undercompensated Racial microagressions within the company Still a lack of diversity