Pros
Free coffee, gym, and cafeteria with okay choices.
Cons
Here is a fair warning before you accept the job offer. I'll give it to you straight. The role of a Client Partner is simply, and at most, the individual responsible for delivering click bait. You are tasked with typically a large territory owned by several Account Managers (around 8-12 while I was around) who 'share' their book of business with you (typically around 250 contacts). The job entitles you, as the Client Partner, to reach out to the heads of these businesses (in the HR realm, you're looking at the Chief Human Resources Officer, or their leadership teams) to hold 'value calls' based on calculated intervals prior to their subscription renewal. You act as essentially the middle person who plays a support type role to make sure that clients are happy with their expensive subscription. Day in and day out, you are measured on if clients clicked on a link that you've sent them (which indicates that they may have read the research), how many times they've been on the website to search utilizing self help, if you've showed them something new during a call, etc. Really, your job is to make sure they use their subscription, so day in and day out you're chasing people who are very busy, trying to get a phone call in, or sending out personalized e-mails to 'trick' them into clicking on your link, so you can meet your metrics! To be fair, I thought it would be a fun job when I was recruited away from an established career and great organization. Reflecting back on it now, it was a great learning experience on how this organization does not stay true to their words in being a people company, and a great opportunity to write a review for anyone who is thinking about joining. Gartner preaches 'mission over metrics', however it's a really heavily metrics based company where if you meet 9/10 metrics, they will still let you go despite all other qualities or achievements. Good luck if you have a new manager, the top down approach with management will dictate your day to day, which typically consists of scheduling 10-20 calls (most of which go unanswered), cold calling, and making sure clients click on links! You'll feel the pressure of micromanagement because of the top down approach. From my professional experience and seeing the organizational structure, it doesn't surprise me that there were many lay-offs during this pandemic. Middle management and front line managers are saturated in this organization, so much that the title of 'manager' may even be diluted, so I'm predicting there may be additional lay-offs to trim the fat unfortunately. I'll summarize a few key takeaways here: - Your job is to deliver 'value' in the form of click bait - You'll partner with some awesome, and some horrible Account Managers - If you have clients in other countries, good luck have fun with setting meetings during their working hours (management still expects you to reach out to them!) - Salary is good, if you're starting off. Client Partners make around $65,000, not bad for click bait, but attrition is very very high, and the job is risky in terms of your expected metrics, and potential lay-offs. - The job satisfaction level is low, because you're in a never ending cycle of a push-pull relationship with internal stakeholders and every day you hope someone clicks your link. Hope this helps!
