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    Cornerstone Research Reviews

    Updated February 11, 2019
    151 reviews

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    3.9
    StarStarStarStarStar
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    Recommend to a friend
    Approve of CEO
    Cornerstone Research President and CEO Michael E. Burton
    Michael E. Burton
    43 Ratings

    Employee Reviews

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    Pros
    Cons

    • "Expectations vary between teams, and the New York office especially has bad work life balance expectations" (in 17 reviews)

    • "Sometimes long hours do need to be put in to get the job done" (in 13 reviews)

    More Pros and Cons

    1. "Great place to keep using economics PhD outside of academia"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Associate in Boston, MA
      Current Employee - Associate in Boston, MA
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      Continue to perform economic analyses after your PhD. Access to incredible data. Involved in front-page, interesting issues. Very bright and collaborative coworkers. Significant investment made in maintaining firm culture. Recent expansion in workplace flexibility (e.g., work from home whenever needed).

      Cons

      Significant variation in hours. Fixed timeline for promotion.

    2. "Interesting and challenging work, brilliant colleagues"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Associate in Washington, DC
      Current Employee - Associate in Washington, DC
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than a year)

      Pros

      Super interesting cases, great experience, great colleagues, top of the market pay

      Cons

      Inconsistent workload - periods of being slow or being super busy

      Advice to Management

      Great job!

      3. Join the Cornerstone Research team
      See Our Latest Jobs

    3. Helpful (2)

      "Great culture, interesting cases"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Analyst
      Current Employee - Analyst
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time

      Pros

      The culture is great. People are quirky and intelligent. The cases are some of the most complex and challenging.

      Cons

      Expectations vary between teams, and the New York office especially has bad work life balance expectations. It also has more finance cases which are on the boring side.

      Advice to Management

      Set clear expectations of when a work product should be delivered, and don't blame analysts for leaving early when there's nothing to do.

    4. "Good career for Econ PhDs"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Senior Manager in New York, NY
      Current Employee - Senior Manager in New York, NY
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      -Most projects are interesting and involve cool data
      -Colleagues are all very intelligent people who are fun to hang out with
      -Get to work on multiple types of cases across different industries and practices
      -Faster paced (in a good way) compared to academics

      Cons

      The firm has had a lot of work in the last year, so many managers were quite busy. The firm is working on hiring more PhDs to keep up with the demand for our services, which will hopefully lead to fewer busy periods.

    5. "Associate"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Associate in Chicago, IL
      Current Employee - Associate in Chicago, IL
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than a year)

      Pros

      Good pay, flexible re schedule, you learn a lot at the beginning.

      Cons

      Variability in hours, the learning curve is steep, but it flattens out fairly quickly, not a lot of role models at teh management level.

    6. "Great Company, Great Culture"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Senior Analyst in Washington, DC
      Current Employee - Senior Analyst in Washington, DC
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than a year)

      Pros

      Cornerstone provides great training and work experience. Great exit opportunities following the analyst experience. The firm has a fantastic culture, and the analysts are good friends with one another.

      Cons

      Hours can be long, because our project deadlines are determined by judges and attorneys.

    7. "Would not recommend for PhD"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - PhD Associate
      Former Employee - PhD Associate
      Doesn't Recommend
      Disapproves of CEO

      I worked at Cornerstone Research full-time

      Pros

      I do think it is a good place for analysts out of college. Just not for PhDs.

      Cons

      Honestly, I was miserable working at Cornerstone and would recommend other PhDs to not join if they have outside options. You'll likely quickly feel as though you had wasted your PhD by working here. Of the PhDs I've talked to, those who have stayed in academia or gone to other industry jobs (whether banking, tech), NGO, or government have been happier.

      My views seem to be consistent with the high level of associate turnover in recent years.

    8. "Cornerstone"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee

      I have been working at Cornerstone Research full-time

      Pros

      Good and smart people, generally interesting and challenging work, high quality company

      Cons

      Work like balance can be difficult

    9. Helpful (2)

      "If coming in as an associate, be very certain this is what you want to do"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Cornerstone Research full-time

      Pros

      *some interesting cases and good managers
      *coworkers are generally good natured and culture is collegial
      *work with very smart people: analysts, colleagues, professors, lawyers from big law firms
      *get to take leadership of cases very soon
      *pay is very competitive to the consulting industry , expect $170K (base) to start for associate and if you stay and make it to first year of Principal (generally 7 years) on average expect to make $450K (including bonus). Base pay doesn't increase very much from Associate to Principal but the normal bonus % will increase from 15% of base pay to 50% of base pay.
      *good benefits and flexibility to work from home as needed
      *very little travel required

      Cons

      *Average hours worked is 50 (40 billable on cases and 10 for firm development) but the hours week over week are very unpredictable. You can suddenly be overwhelmed by multiple cases with deadlines. Long nights and weekend work is normal. If you happen to get a very busy year you are barely compensated for the extra hours worked so no incentive to go above 50 hours per week. Hours and stress do not get better with seniority
      *once you establish reputation as having worked on a type of case you may be working on the same type of case over and over. Stopped learning
      *some terrible managers that can't manage nor communicate well
      *exit options are very limited for associates and up. Don't come unless absolutely sure you want to do economic consulting

    10. Helpful (1)

      "Decent place, but extremely political"

      StarStarStarStarStar
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Manager
      Former Employee - Manager
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Cornerstone Research full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      Smart coworkers, great analyst pool.

      Cons

      Work life balance. Very important to have partners who will mentor you.

      Advice to Management

      Need to have better work life balance.