Great benefits but very top heavy organization - Senior CRA AbbVie Employee Review

3.0
Aug 7, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The benefits are hard to beat. Great people. If you don’t like travel that’s great because they are getting away from travel for CRAs (and I mean in normal, non-COVID times). Trip report writing is barely existent.

Cons

Very low pay for this industry. Very disorganized- there are too many systems that no one really knows how to use, are redundant, yet you are expected to use. Monitoring is a low priority - even though that’s your job title. Being a good monitor is not truly recognized when it comes to performance review, only “initiatives”, like being on round tables etc. There are a tremendous amount of calls just to have calls. Communication is a challenge, as everything must be said in the correct way and to the correct person (no talking to someone not in your escalation chain.) When it comes to oncology, upper management is far too involved in what CRAs do and they refuse to listen to input from experienced CRAs. They create business “solutions” that do not work well in the medical field. The quality of sites are not important as long as you get sites that promise to give you patients. Everything is about enrollment and query numbers. What actually happens once patients are on study gets far less attention.

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AbbVie Response
4y
Thank you for sharing your feedback regarding your experience working at AbbVie. Extensive policies and procedures are put in place at AbbVie to ensure safety and quality for our patients and our employees. We encourage employees to provide feedback to their managers and other leaders so we can continue to improve. Please reach out to HR Connect to discuss your feedback in more detail. Concerns can be reported anonymously.

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Pros

Work with high achieving people

Cons

Hard to move within the organization

4.0
Apr 8, 2026
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Pros

Not bad as pharma companies go. Relatively good job security. A lot of lovely, smart and hard working people. Benefits team are generally receptive and benefits have improved. Less likely to lay people off than other pharma/biotech.

Cons

Your experience is almost entirely dictated by your managers. Adherence to official policies is super variable. Site is relatively siloed from the rest of the company, top-heavy, and academic. Too many PhDs, not enough entry level development to support projects and execution. Sometimes a lack of clear leadership or direction and bizarre "old school" pharma opaque communication. Very limited, once yearly opportunities for promotion. Bizarre pay /compensation penalties for taking parental leave that saddles two different calendar years.

3
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