It's a sales role disguised as "business development"
Pros
Few nice and welcoming employees at the London offices, but otherwise, it's not a nice place to work.
Cons
The BDA promises “huge money opportunity”: insane earnings growth after 12 month-ish, but at the expense of soul-crushing hamster wheel of doing same thing every day yet not having freedom to try new things (limited creativity). Role is tough in the beginning yet you are not expected or even encouraged to stay after 12 months on BDA position. The BDA (Business development associate) role is the hardest role they have and is all about KPIs and doing Cii exams for R01-R06. Most people at the company hate this role . I had an impression that this is sales role with nothing but cold calling and emailing. Manager said “we don't do cold calling any more” but ex-employees as well as employees sitting right in the office said that they indeed do cold calls. After the first day it was clear that the role is quite boring and is “on-the-rails”, i.e. you do as they say as creativity or doings differently is essentially not encouraged at all. I am assuming some people got bored after a while, tried some other approach to their tasks and company did not like that, as all they care about is KPIs and “stick to what works and don’k questions” mentality. It's very number-based, if you cannot do what they ask in first 3 months, you are out. Just do simple googling and you will find tons of news stories about devere and after decide if you want to join them. I would not recommend.
