First Advantage reviews

3.3

42% would recommend to a friend

(1,105 total reviews)

Scott Staples

67% approve of CEO

45% positive business outlook

First Advantage has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 1,105 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The First Advantage employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Recursos humanos industry (3.8 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
1.0
May 10, 2012

Not called Take Advantage for nothing!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Opportunities to get on the first rung of the ladder, student schemes may be available. Some colleagues were decent people. There were free beverages. It was probably somewhat better than having no job at all.

Cons

The recruitment strategy seems to be to hire young grads and/or very desperate people, and then demand that they work unreasonable hours, due in part to some poor management decisions. The work/life balance was rarely respected - the needs of the company always won. Poor remuneration and benefits - when I left, my salary almost doubled overnight. I felt that I was misled during the interview about exactly what the role entailed. I believe that you can tell a lot about a company by how they behave when you leave, and when I announced my resignation I was treated particularly poorly. From day one I was bombarded with literally hundreds of emails in every 24 hour period, and expected to read them all, even though 99% of them are totally irrelevant to your role (or even the country that you are in). If you do not read them, be prepared for the fallout when a deeply coded instruction sent in the early hours of the morning which does not mention your name, business unit, or even country, is missed and attempts are subsequently made to heap all of the blame onto you to avoid implicating directors/managers. Internal communication seemed to be a real issue, not helped by overuse of corporate-speak. There did not appear to be any kind of senior leadership whatsoever when I worked there - to this day I could not name the CEO if I tried. The entire business strategy seemed to be to lurch from crisis to crisis until sold up the river by whatever PE firm owned the company that week. An exceptionally cliquey workplace - you'll do well if you're prepared to fawn over and ingratiate yourself to the 'right' people and behave in a completely two-faced way towards your colleagues. If you do this, you will be rewarded with promotions involving extra numbers after your job title, with no other tangible benefits.

1.0
Apr 19, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Get to work with colleagues around the world

Cons

All of IT was being outsourced, and the IT department as a whole was negative, immature, full of micro-management and self-destructive.

3.0
Apr 10, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent work environment Good work/life balance Have held steady despite brutal economy and market conditions affecting the company

Cons

Frequent spin-offs/acquisitions over the past few years have created a poor culture of uncertainty; New PE owners - still unclear of overall strategy and direction going forward; Senior management an ever-changing roller coaster; Everyone is walking on egg shells - good talent is walking out the door...

Viewing 1084 - 1086 of 1,105 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,169 First Advantage reviews submitted anonymously by First Advantage employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if First Advantage is right for you.