Pros
Associates are super friendly
These are the glitter in the turd. Largely banded together by being under-employed and underpaid and wondering whether they read the job spec correctly when they applied. You'll recognise these guys because they're the only ones in the office who are smiling, but will wax lyrical about the issues above if asked in private.
Flexible working hours and agile working
Probably the best thing about the job
Some managers are really nice
It's luck of the draw, but some are brilliant
Easy work and a good work life balance
Being an associate isn't rocket science and if you work hard and smartly (and if you're lucky enough to be in a department where you have more autonomy), you can have a decent work-life balance.
Cons
You don't make a difference
The teachers do. You'll spend your day ordering dominos pizza, printing name labels and having an existential crisis.
Internal selections are a joke
A competency framework which is designed to get the best person for the job is gospel. It means people with far more experience lose out to those who memorise the framework because they aren't jumping through hoops. Don't believe me? Look at the CVs of those in some AD positions and management positions and find enough experience to justify the taxpayer-paid salary.
Oxbridge and lack of experience in the type of schools we work with
Going to Oxford or Cambridge will guarantee you at least a management position. A huge proportion of senior staff went there. Going to Oxbridge shouldn't disqualify you from rising to the top of an organisation, but there is an air of elitism about the place. Very little internal social mobility.
Lack of experience, particularly at management level
Compare the job requirements here with similar positions Teach First. Where more senior positions are concerned, it's down to the competency framework meaning people who memorise it get promoted. Having so many people who haven't set foot in a classroom since they were a child working for an education charity is embarrassing. Some Area Directors have no experience in the fields which they are leading.
Incompetent HR
Procedures are broken left, right and centre. I've lost count of how many people have been put on the wrong tax code. We have a huge HR department for an organisation our size.
Pay is trash for associates
So you know this when you apply, but you're also told about how quickly you'll rise up internally. Recently a welcome pay rise was given, but the better paid you already were, the greater % increase you got. The average pay in the UK is £27,000 and there are people with masters degrees on £20,000 at Ambition with no internal progression.
Management is oblivious
Cake, [well meaning] wellbeing champions, discussion groups that produce nothing and working groups which have no impact are no match for low pay, lack of internal progression and no autonomy
You cannot progress on the high quality of your work alone.
No, I don't really want to be part of several working groups which will take hours out of my week where I (as a lowly associate) will be ignored just so I can secure a more position I'm qualified to get. I'm on £20,000 a year with low morale.
One rule for management
People are made ADs with no assessment centre and expenses (particularly train tickets) are frequently misspent. Ambition spends an obscene amount on travel, and some senior staff are reluctant to travel on off-peak times.
