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British Council

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British Council reviews

3.7

64% would recommend to a friend

(2,306 total reviews)
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Ciarán Devane

63% approve of CEO

46% positive business outlook

British Council has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 2,306 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The British Council employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the ONG y Organizaciones sin fines de lucro industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
3.0
Feb 17, 2021

Shame on you!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A very established organization with noble goals and objectives. Fair salaries depending on the country you're in.

Cons

In some third world countries, some of the British Nationals (expats to 3rd world countries) act like disgusting modern slave owners taking everyone outside of their culture as a thief or barbarian. - This organization is supposed to be a non-profit but the only thing they do in third world countries is making money out of the rich and corrupt making it very hard for the poor and qualified to benefit from their programs set by the UK government. (revenues collected from teaching center is 1.5 million Pounds at times). I personally witnessed an attempt to escape paying taxes for the country they were operating in (third world country). one of their policies is not to report corruption to government officials if this will threaten their presence in that specific country. In other words, be corrupt if needed, survival is above all. Jobs are given to specific people and aren't based on merit. In the third world country i worked in, jobs belonged to people and relatives of the host country's foreign affairs ministry officials.

1.0
Aug 17, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Brand name NGO * Nice office location and facilities * You can take unpaid "career leave" with a guaranteed job if you come back afterwards...but most of those I knew who took it ended up not coming back!

Cons

* Low pay, even for non-profit * Toxic work environment * Inflexible bureaucracy * Bickering and aggressive competition between different offices * They require recommendation from your current employer before they can give you a formal job offer (i.e. forget about a discreet job search!!) * Lack of opportunity to advance * Despite large office, not a great support network . Communication between different project staff in the same dept, let alone different departments, was essentially non-existent. * Finance and IT department was all outsourced to India, even the local finance director and IT staff could not help with basic issues * Questionable use of UK taxpayers' money for "charitable purpose" while generating profit from ESL teaching (i.e. is BC a genuinely charitable organization or an ESL/language school subsidized by public funds?). Questions regarding the validity of the organization's non-profit status in some countries isn't a great morale-booster. * If you aren't a revenue-generator (i.e. English teacher), you are an afterthought. * Restructuring * High turnover and staff dissatisfaction

2.0
Jun 8, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Not much to recommend, overally it's not a pleasant experience, the atmosphere is so fake

Cons

The big boss doesn't know what's going on from the people who close the deal, the lower level people focus just on internal fighting with each other and are afraid to speak out, well, everthing is superficially beautiful but wounded deeply underneath. BC. You have your own fate

Viewing 13 - 15 of 2,306 Reviews

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