Pros
Work-life balance is good in most departments and you are encouraged to engage in activities besides your role e.g. tour guiding or technical community organisation. Compensation is equivalent with other jobs in Switzerland. Many of us gain a large amount of job satisfaction from working for a scientific organisation.
Cons
One of the aims of CERN is to employ people temporarily, train them, and send them back to their home country. Consequently contact extension is highly competitive and career progression is uncertain, networking is very important and bias does influence hiring. Positive organisational changes (e.g. parental leave improvements) are slow to come, partially since agreement must be found between member states - internal bureaucracy and procedures in general are burdensome.
