Third Bridge reviews

1. The business model essentially relies upon exploiting naive grads who don't know that many of the company's requests are totally unreasonable. 2. Absolutely zero weight is given to feedback from staff members - hence why the staff turnover remains so high. As you can see, the other reviews are very negative, but leadership either lacks the humility or the vision to do anything about it. 3. The company will brag about diversity and especially diversity amongst its leadership - until you realise that the majority of managers and senior leaders are privately educated. Only 7% of the British population is privately educated but I'll be damned if half of that 7% don't work for Third Bridge. 4. The targets are obscene. If you are lucky enough to get staffed on a busy account you will make an extra ~20-30% on most of your colleagues, and everyone will sing your praises. If you are unlucky and get staffed on a quiet account, you will be put on a PIP and eventually fired, all the while being told that it is entirely your fault. (btw @Management, before you write off my review as just someone who is salty they got fired - I didn't.) 5. Very repetitive. As a new associate you will spend your entire day (and I mean your entire day) doing 1 of 3 things. Either you will be calling through a list of experts already in the database, doing cold reach outs to potential experts or you will be acting as a PA to the expert/ client trying to make a call between them happen so you get points towards bonus. Once you pass probation, you will have the added task of managing client comms & searching for experts within the system. 6. Micromanagement. Each morning you will check in with your manager to plan your day and your to-dos, you will then be hounded about what you are doing for the rest of the day. If you are a project manager (associate who has passed probation) you will have no freedom on how you execute the project as you will consistently have your manager going through your project and making changes without telling you. 7. More work for same pay. As mentioned, when you pass probation you take on the client management aspect. This used to be a promotion (you went from Connections Associate -> Client Associate and got a like 10-15% pay rise). Now, however, it is not. You take on about 30-40% more work for no benefit. 8. Here's a fun one: being shamed for doing anything after work. In a normal job, it is expected that you will do something after work (drinks with friends, the gym, a long dog walk perhaps!). Not at Third Bridge. No no, for you, my young graduate friend, must be available at the beck & call of a large consultancy firm. Clients will send you projects at 10PM at night and you are expected to respond to them within 20 minutes and have an initial list of experts over to them within the hour. I have on several occasions been told that it simply "wasn't good enough" that I was uncontactable at 9:30PM, and that I should have made another member of the team aware that I was going to be out for dinner. Now, some teams have a way round this! What they do, is they each take 1 night a week to be "on-call". Essentially, they sacrifice 1 whole night a week where they can't do anything and must be available until 10-11pm. During this time they must respond to any and all client comms and set up projects. They do not get paid for this.

Working at Third Bridge for 1.5 years was one of the worst experiences of my life. It is emotionally draining, incredibly boring, hostile, and does not set you up with any tangible skills to continue your career. First, the company is dishonest about the starting role. You are not an "analyst", you are a recruiter who is expected to send out 100+ emails/ LinkedIn messages per day and make 40+ cold calls. Your goal is to convince high level executives to consult with clients for meager pay. The initial work is very monotonous but relatively easy. The biggest on-going problems with the company are as follows: - 0 transparency with regards to your promotion track (in fact I was often outright lied to about my promotion track) - managers have 0 experience managing or developing people (they are promoted only internally and the first 3 levels of promotions do not involve any people management skills, team managers are in their mid 20s and have never trained or managed people before and almost always lack the skills to do so) - lower level managers are essentially scheduling coordinators (they offer almost 0 help to analysts in their work but still give unrealistic demands that are based on their clients' needs) - overall leadership is completely disconnected from the needs of employees - skill development is not at all a part of the role (no skills are realistically needed to complete the job at either the analyst not the client associate level, besides the ability to send coherent emails and put lists together) - culture is incredibly toxic (rude comments over internal chats are a daily occurrence, promotions are handed out based on favoritism, you are berated for any mistake but any success is not recognized, most employees are severely burnt out, etc) - the job is described as a 9-6 role but that is a lie (you are expected to start around 8:30 and regularly work past 7:30 [or past 10pm once you are promoted]) - the compensation is significantly below market rate and the bonuses are extremely meager, etc. Myself and my colleagues were extremely unhappy at this company. Most employees are looking to leave or are currently leaving. Many of my peers were forced to start therapy because of the level of stress and anxiety that their own managers inflicted on them. Turnover is extremely high and the reasons behind it are very obvious to all current employees. Working here halted my career progress and ruined my mental health. Do everything in your power to avoid working at this company.