1. Terrible salary - From the NGO world, IPA probably pays the worst to its employees, specially if you consider that their hiring requirements are quite strict (good notes, good uni, data analysis skills).
2. Terrible work perks -Again, from the NGO world, you will probably be the only employees in developing countries who need to use public transport to work, find housing, solve any settling-in a new country things, etc. (other international NGOs provide their staff with housing arrangements, transport, etc.)
3. No job security - You will be hired to fulfill their needs for projects but once your project is over (usually a year) then you are on your own to find new opportunities. This helps to explain the crazy turnover in the organization.
4. Poor management - Leadership is young and inexperienced. They are very incompetent managing and will try to put the blame on RAs for their lack of proper guidance.
5. No on-boarding- Related to the one above, there is no onboarding to the company (other than links to a few web resources). Literally ALL staff complain about this, yet nothing is done to change this. It is no surprise that most of the projects end up doing things incorrectly when you put freshly arrived RAs to do things they have never done before and without any supervision.
6. No PI involvement - Job postings will often advertise that the position requires working closely with PIs (academics). Nothing is farther from the truth since PIs, specially famous ones, will hardly provide any advice or even contact to their RAs! Younger PIs, not so renowned, are an exemption as they are more interested and engaged. However, considering that the "value added" that IPA offers is the collaboration with academics, it seems like any organization might be better off doing any projects on their own.
