Contrived organisation, with a penchant for employee manipulation. I'd recommend ignoring positive reviews.
Pros
- There are some wonderful recently joined colleagues. - The location of the shared office space is nice and central in London, although you have to be mindful about speaking too loudly and not talking about work with them in earshot for confidential reasons. - It's easy enough to leave, as they don't uphold the strangely long notice period.
Cons
The great thing about Glassdoor is that QS can't alter the reviews. You can see from the first review to the most recent that the overarching theme is that reviews all highlight the toxicity of this place. My mental health has suffered from this place a lot, so much so that my friends and family have been asking if I'm okay and I've decided now is the time to speak up about my experience here, having seen so many people express how I've been feeling it's given me the motivation to do so. The fact that a toxic culture, micromanagement, manipulative and patronising environment is present here still feels generous. The replies to all the feedback really demonstrates the level of poison that flows through this company; there's no respect for people expressing their despair and pretty much every response talks about how our opinions are heard or taken into consideration but it really is just lip service. I don't need to say much more as those who are interested in joining here should really just look at all the reviews and responses and get that from there. There's a few things I want to cover that the company has claimed they don't do - which working here I can freely say isn't true. 1. Upon either 30 days after joining or passing probation, you speak with someone in HR for a "general chat" and they ask you to write a Glassdoor review - that is the definition of manipulative. Nobody who has just joined is really going to have a bad word to say about a new job, so they're using it to falsely boost their score and numbers. 2. Hybrid working is not truly hybrid, you have to be in the office for at least 3 days a week - but not with your own flexibility, you're told when you need to come in without actually seeing any benefit to why you're in there. That's because the leadership team use it as an opportunity to monitor what you're doing. Claiming collaboration is false. 3. There are ALWAYS vacancies - this has nothing to do with QS's goals, ambitions or plans to restructure or their plans to scale the company. The reason is because people leave faster than they join. The company wide stand ups always mysteriously have fewer and fewer numbers because departures are kept secret. This is particularly obvious with any candidate who is "senior", or in other words not inexperienced. Depending on the seniority of your role you have either between 3-9 months notice period, but I've never seen anyone stay for more than a few weeks after resigning. 4. Joining the company requires an invasive level of personal information, it's not a simple matter of signing a contract, you've got 4-5 different additional documents that you'd never need to fill anywhere else - which really doesn't set a positive precedence that doesn't feel like strangulation. 5. I've given up making friends here, I get to know someone and look forward to working with them, but then they leave. Considering it's a 45+ hour week (9-6pm mandatory hours, but really it's more like 8:30 - 7pm) it can get quite lonely and isolating. 6. I have nothing more to add about the criticism for the CEO and other senior leadership team that has already been mentioned extensively, other than it is incredibly true. You cannot trust any one of them. 7. The company benefits aren't special, legally, for all companies in the UK there are certain benefits that need to be provided. This includes: 28 days annual leave, health insurance, pension contribution and sick pay. The only extra "benefit" QS provides is a learning and development budget, but in truth can never be used because there is no time to use it - work deadlines are always unachievable without sacrificing your personal hours and drains you so much that you can't even really manage more than a few days off of leave without it being challenged. Interestingly they offer anniversary bonuses, but I suspect it's because nobody stays for more than 18 months that it's never needed to be paid out. To summarise, look elsewhere if you're a prospective employee - you are important, valuable and deserve a job that you feel like you can be yourself and upskill yourself. This place isn't right for you. If you're still working here, and decided to see how others feel because we can't speak up, you're not alone - everyone feels like this, so stand proud and leave.
