Pros
Salary- One of the highest paying in the CRO industry. Traveling reward points and status accumulation. Learn so much about different diseases and the safety of clinical research.
Cons
ICON needs to seriously pull back the majority of the Functional Managers for some overall people/communication skills. Every FM I have personally came across or hear stories of from other CRAs have the same pattern of not knowing how to speak to CRAs. You can be the best performing CRA with no complaints from clients or other co-workers, but if you forget one item from your monitoring checklist (an item that can easily be attainable via email), the kind of drawn out lecture and word usage your FM will use, you would've thought that you have been the worst employee with the worst track record. At the end of the meeting you will certainly question yourself if you're worthy of being a CRA. Just FYI, because ICON is very metrics driven, that one missed item gives ICON's management a reason to hold you back on promotion or a decent yearly raise. All they have to say in your review is that they had a "conversation with you" and you can kiss that promotion or decent raise goodbye. You're put in a position where you can't say anything or rebuttal because they will just refer to what you missed and that's the end of it. ICONs hotel and meal allowance guidelines are following prices from the early 2000s. For a lot of the major traveled to cities, they have max allowed hotel rates that are more aligned with highway and hourly motels. You will get approved if you go over the allowed hotel rate but it will come with an interrogation from your FM, as if you were trying to book The Ritz Carlton or St. Regis. Telling them that you're concerned about your safety, will not suffice to the only answer they will accept and move on from the conversation. You also have Functional Managers that absolutely do not like being even remotely suggested to that they could be wrong on the information they are relaying to you. If you even dare set one foot into that territory, good luck on that 1.5 hour conversation that was spent on just trying to clearly paint the picture for your FM to understand that he or she may have this one time, relayed the incorrect information. ICON's management does preach a lot on not burning out their CRAs. They will sound very considerate of your personal home life and health, don't fall for it. This job is not your typical 9-5 job, but if you want to continue excelling with ICON, you will have to forget about your family.