team leader

security specialist

security officer

law enforcement officer

residential security officer

Gavin de Becker & Associates

My goal in this review is to provide a transparent and honest review of GDBA.

As a Management level individual for the firm as I have been for nearly 3 years I can be honest in saying I've worked alongside the employees that make most of the negative reviews. They all display the same traits, poor work ethic, want everything handed to them and don't take responsibility.  However, some of their recommendations for leadership and the company are true. 

The culture of GDBA is great and provides an easy transition for prior military/law enforcement. All others are welcomed as well. A typical work week/month would consist of a standard 48 hour work week,(you will more than likely be ASKED to work OT, you can say No) As a new protector, you're on night shifts. Everyone has to start somewhere, If you think you're going to start on a Monday - Friday day shift, or traveling internationally, that won't happen. If you have prior experience in the EP world traveling, that will be recognized and you will possibly be pulled to travel and your experience utilized. But just know that everyone must have the understanding and ability to work in a command center.

Leadership is great and has changed a lot in the past few years, managers have been promoted, divisions split and focus can be placed where needed as mid-senior level leaders can pay attention to their assigned tasks. GDBA is growing, with that comes growing pains but it all gets recognized and at the least acknowledged. Sometimes issues don't immediately get fixed, it takes time which some people can't comprehend, and those individuals depart the firm. 

The schedule can indeed be tough at times, flipping from days-nights and vice versa is an occurrence, but one that is attempted to be avoided .

Opportunity for growth is abundant, the firm is growing which creates positions almost daily it seems like. 

Pay is good, starting out you get paid what one should expect as a new employee (You region/state differ). However understand the ability to make very good pay does exist and the firm provides you an outline of the current pay scale which is very competitive

I find it difficult to give a poor review to any company that will go out of their way to trust me, train me, and pay me. However, Gavin de Becker & Associates (GDBA) is a tough cookie to swallow.

The company is based out of California, where most of the contracts and employment opportunities reside. If you are outside of California, you are going to be hard pressed to find training opportunities or advancement.

The company does a great job of bringing you on and sending you to California for training, which was well done and about half of the instructors know what they are talking about, but is far below industry standards in terms of defensive tactics, the legality of civilian use of force, and firearms instruction. After the honeymoon phase of being scared into confidentiality and being made to feel as if this is a 5-Star organization, the feeling quickly fades.

Management here is highly under qualified, under educated, and under challenged. There is very little training for managers and it shows quickly, as the atmosphere anti-professional development. Managers are generally former Marines with only a few years of experience that came over to this job right after separation, and it shows. Low emotional intelligence and managerial skills turn work sites into a game of machismo and a rent-a-cop attitude.

Compensation is on an individual base and generally well below industry standards, but turnover is so high that they can afford to underpay employees for the average two year turnover.

With all of the negative stuff out of the way, I can say that this is a great stepping stone into law enforcement. There is a lot of downtime (actual downtime where you are looking at monitors and expected to do nothing), so you can finish up school work and other tasks that may need attention while at your work site.

Overall, not recommended but I can appreciate that they allowed me to come and train with them and work a location for about a year. If it sounds like I am being overly negative, the location I worked at had a 100% turnover in the one year I was there, this includes managers.

Brutally Honest Review from somebody who has been in a little over 2 years... I will be speaking about the good and the bad.

A quick background: I was in the Marine corps Infantry for 4 years so i'm used to long hours and basically always working/being tired.

Pro Review: GDBA is by far the best EP company out there for people looking to get their feet wet in the industry. Most industries wont even take you if you don't have any experience. GDBA prioritizes training from Day 1 and will never put anybody in their team if they dont think its the right fit. From day 1, the leadership, management, and co workers have been an honor to work with. You'll always have those couple guys who try and make the workplace toxic, but overall a great group of dudes. Most of the company is former military, and they do a good job of cutting out the excess BS. They treat you like a man/woman and you'll get rewarded for the work that you put it. The opportunities, stuff you get to see, people you get to meet make it well worth it to take a shot in a great company like this. You'll get to do things that most people wouldn't dream of doing. There are some experiences I will never forget.

Con review: Although GDBA is great in many ways, just like in every other company it has its cons. Lets start off with the pay. The pay isn't terrible, but is not nearly as competitive with other agencies. You have multiple raises through your two years. GDBA sacrifices pay for training. Training does pay off in the long run. Another con, is work/life balance. The work life balance is pretty bad. As a new agent you'll be working mostly night shifts that are either 8 hours or 12 hours for a year minimum. You wont be forced to do OT, but it looks good when you volunteer and there's ALWAYS OT opportunity. Even leadership works weekends and off the clock. This is where many people drop out of the EP. You sacrifice a lot of time with family and friends and dedicate your time to improving your craft in GDBA. This lifestyle demands time, energy, and effort.

Where to begin? Gavin de Becker does a great job at promoting itself, but wow, its a whole lot of nothing. You will waste away in an office while playing the role of a personal assistant and/or property manager. You will very rarely have anything that could qualify as protective work. 

You work at least 12 hours a day and you will never have a set schedule. Often, you will not know what days you are working until that Sunday and even then, your schedule will likely change. You will work both days and nights in the same week, so forget about sleep, and you can never call off because the firm is so short handed because of how terribly management treats their employees. If you do call out, whether it be because you're sick or you have a family emergency, you can rest assured that you will be harassed by your leadership to come in. They will tell you that you have to come in and if you don't, you will be black balled and shunned. This is by far the worst job one could have, and I really wouldn't wish it upon anyone who actually values their lives outside of work. 

Company morale is poor, and its because nobody can afford o do anything outside of work, and because the job itself is just draining. The company really doesn't value its employees. 

The culture is your typical post military/law enforcement alpha males and females which honestly can lead to some great relationships. At the same time, it also creates a shark tank atmosphere where you have to be careful who you "trust," if anyone at all.

The only plus side of this job is that you are able to meet and interact with crowds that you would otherwise never be able to. You get to drive fancy cars, eat pricey food, but when its all said and done you get to drive home to your one bedroom apartment and wonder when your next shift will be and hope that you aren't fired or black balled for something ridiculous. That's this firm, in a nutshell. Stay away. Friends don't let friends work here.

I worked for this company for over 4 years. Each year it became more and more apparent that I was simply a number to this company. They will constantly ask you to work OT, good for pay sure but horrible for life balance. They say you can deny OT and wont affect you but in reality if you do deny it youre basically black listing yourself. They know this and take advantage of it constantly, guilt tripping you into coming in regardless. Work life balance is horrible. Though they did just move from 4, 12 hour shifts a week to 5, 8 hour shifts. I have heard its helped a little but I was gone before then. 

Management is spotty. I have worked at many different sites in many different states. Some manages I have had were great, instructive, listened and helped anytime they could. Others still think they are Marine drill instructors and believe the idea of leading is yelling and making everyone miserable. It is hit or miss here. 

For the most part the people you work with daily are good people. Mostly males will military backgrounds who've just gotten out. 

The most enjoyable part of the job is obviously travel. As an EP agent you get to go to some pretty amazing places if you are with the right client. Some clients don't travel, which means you never will either. Do not expect to travel for your first 6months to a year. You make a good chunk of money traveling with GDBA and managers know this. Thus they will usually schedule themselves and the other managers for trips. Manager life is pretty easy with GDBA so most do not leave for very long periods of time, making promotions few and far between. 

If you are looking to start in the EP field, GDBA is a decent start but understand from they start you are just a number and they will try to work you to death while giving nothing in return. More so since they just cut their pay by 17-20% across the board.

The typical day at work is very simple and easy to learn, the stresses come from unnecessary and redundant policies. Different areas have different experiences, and every time we got a person from a different site they would always mention how much worse our site was and exclaimed that every other site was better, so your milage may very depending on where you work.

Workplace culture is bizarre, they do NOT like it if you talk about pay. The company touts about leadership qualities but former military will be disappointed to find that the leadership qualities they list are not inspirational, but strangely negative and if followed will make you a leader nobody will trust with information.

From my experience management was basically non-existent and there was a "crab bucket" mentality where the peers would drag each other down just to make themselves look better.

The most enjoyable part of the job were the days I got paid and the occasional company dinner if I wasn't scheduled for a 12 hour shift. I worked at a reasonable distance from my house but would often be asked to drive over 50 miles from my residence to assist other sites with no form of compensation at all.

Management for us was basically non-existent. Leadership was always at the higher-paying sites and would return wondering why nobody was trained, and leave again before any training was done. I have heard leadership up to the president talking about their lack of compassion towards low morale. The job itself is EASY, it is the leadership and policies that make it STRESSFUL. Send the wrong email and you will be treated as if you shot the pope.

All in all if you are looking for a job to hunker down and collect a paycheck and you don't mind the long hours and thankless work then this job is great if you meet the qualifications.

I've read through some of these bad reviews and I gotta laugh at the entitlement and the absurdity. Their comments sounded like overweight terminal lance corporals and staff sergeants standing in the smoke pit and whining about not being promoted. 

This is the best private security company on the planet and it's not even close. Please someone name another company with GDBA's resources and clients.  Just go to the website and see who works here. Then ask yourself, would they work here if the company was horrible or even remotely not legit? And nearly all of the leaders came to GDBA as entry level protectors -- starting out working night shifts at a clients' residence.  

I served 8 years in USMC infantry and then came to GDBA. Just like in USMC, the few guys who don't work hard or invest in their own improvement are always the first to complain -- hence, the one star reviews.  Successful people in any industry don't point fingers, they're smart enough to connect with the successful people at that company and learn how to make things happen for themselves -- starting with their performance.  And if GDBA isn't a good fit, best to them as they're career progresses somewhere else. 

This company is a true merit-based company. Everyone says that's what they want. In reality, merit-based is not for most people -- as most people don't want to do the work. Most people want opportunities given to them b/c they think they deserve it and b/c of what they did five years ago in the military. etc. Your success HERE depends on your performance HERE.

The benefits are good. Gym membership, good health care plans, unlimited PTO. I used to work in the corporate office. There’re some nice people, but there’s also a lot of corporate nonsense. Hierarchy is everything. Things are not transparent. My supervisor lied to me and my coworker a few times. Can you imagine how it feels to work for someone you can’t even trust? If you work in tech, I do not recommend you work here because it could be frustrating, because the company isn’t technology oriented at all. The tech supports and the software engineer are underpaid. Pay increases are nearly impossible. But it’s fine if you just graduated and need a place to start your career. And if you’re a software engineer, good luck. Because you’ll be in a one-man team that handles anything and everything that’s related to software - maybe 10% of your time will be really used for development. Lastly, the way they handled separation was extremely unprofessional. I got another job opportunity worked out, so I asked the leadership if they can match the pay. I don’t think that was a wrong thing to do. But instead of getting a pay increase, or even a rejection with some explanation, I got an email stating that my email was deemed as my formal resignation, effective immediately. They didn’t even need me to give them a two-week notice to hand over the work. And that was how they treated someone who worked his butt off for them for three years. GDBA, if you’re reading this, you probably already figured out who’s writing this. But I would like to make one thing clear - I’m writing this only to help others, letting them know what they’re getting themselves into and what they can expect.

GDBA is a phenomenal place to work for those who are driven to succeed and those who thrive when there are high standards to be met. As a current employee at this firm, I have seen just how much leadership truly believes in the messages that they preach. A few of them are below:

1. High Standards - GDBA leadership insists that it's employees meet much higher standards than those individuals working for other similar companies. As a junior employee, this means a couple things for you: 1. You will join a team that has some of the most professional and squared away individuals you will ever meet. 2. Your leadership will practice what they preach, and also aim to meet those high standards they ask of you. 3. You will be proud to call yourself an employee at this highly regarded firm.

2. Merit based system - This firm truly is merit based. They hire based off merit and promote based off merit. What this means for the average employee is the following: HARD WORK PAYS OFF. I can honestly say that I am more than happy to work hard and sacrifice for this company when they truly do value it.

3. Stellar Leadership - You will be inspired to work hard and develop your skills, day in and day out, when you are surrounded by leadership that truly cares for you and has your best interest in mind.

4. Opportunities - At GDBA, the deserving employee is given endless opportunities to grow and experience new things. Whether this be on the job or in a training environment. You will always be improving if you decide to pursue a career at GDBA.

This company is full of title chasers who think having a title means leadership. Leadership is an action not a title. This company is not a place to grow. There are other companies that will pay you the same to do less and will give you a far better work life balance as well. It is a place for a wannabe, never-been, has-been or those who are too afraid to try. Most of the bodies there are straight out of the military or had to leave law enforcement (for a variety of reasons, most not that good). While there you hear the "please stay we do not want to lose people" from one person and "you can be replaced with the snap of my finger" from another. It is a bad environment and job security is horrible. Then they wonder with all the burnout, targeting of staff, horrible schedule and horrible pay why they have such a HIGH turn over rate. it is a revolving door. 

This company wants to act like a military or law enforcement organization but offers zero of the benefits but all of the stress and games.  

And too all those high speed operators out there who think they will be on the private jet protecting the who's who's. you won't, it is a lie and they already have people for that. Remember this post when you are sitting in a office being micromanaged by a kid who will tell you how Tier1 he was while in the military. you will be able to listen to all the cool stories of a has been bro ...

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Team leader 4 salaries reported	$100,750 per year
Security specialist 1 salary reported	$77,500 per year
Security officer 2 salaries reported	$62,500 per year
Law enforcement officer 4 salaries reported	$70,000 per year
Residential security officer 2 salaries reported	$82,500 per year

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