research assistant

researcher

administrative assistant

surveyor

senior scientist

RAND Corporation

Was recruited through a staffing agency.  Initial interview with them was confusing and overly complicated.  Agency employee told me that I needed to write out a summary of work related experience, answer a bunch of questions, etc.  Took almost a month after initial interview for contact back from employer after I was told they were hiring.

Work environment was very strange to say the least.  There are all sorts of rules and regulations the company has to abide by to keep their compliance.  Some of their policies seem crazy, like if you are a former employee, you can't come back onto the property to visit a former coworker, for instance.  

There isn't a great training program either, at least when I was employed there.  You are pretty much thrown into a position, given a run down on how to do it, and then it's sink or swim.  Policies and procedures constantly change on the whim of corporate so don't get used to doing it a certain way.

Work culture is cut throat.  Some of the floor supervisors are highly unprofessional, but seem to get away with whatever they want to do without repercussions.  Plant managers come and go.  I went through 3 plant managers while employed there in less than a year and half.  This is yet again, another issue with corporate and their changing whims.

Benefits and pay are not that great.  For the heat you have to endure out on the floor, the paltry pay they offer isn't that good.  Full time benefits are expensive comparative to your pay rate. I found that marketplace insurance was better than the insurance they offered overall.  

This could be a great job, especially for a technical savvy person, but the corporation and professionalism of supervisors currently employed makes this a hard pass.  I actually tell people to stray away from going to work at this location.

Prestigious non-profit providing wide ranging opportunities for research and ability to influence public policy.  Excellent opportunity to work with a broad range of professional policy researchers and experience a group-think methodology to develop robust solutions to real problems.

The organizational structure is matrix-based and permits individuals to seek out new and interesting work across multiple Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs).

I worked in the Santa Monica, CA headquarters for 15 years and relocated to the Pittsburgh, PA office for the last 10 yrs, travelling frequently to the Arlington, VA office for coordination and briefings in the Pentagon.

The workplace culture varies from office to office, but is generally relaxed and cordial among co-workers.  For example, the dress code varied from shorts, T-shirts, and sandals in the Santa Monica office to jeans or slacks with varying shirts unless meeting with outside visitors.  This varied somewhat with the Arlington, VA office where  staff was more likely to interact with visitors and meetings were more frequently scheduled in areas around the National Capital Region.

The hardest part of the job is managing your workload on a daily basis and maintaining a comfortable work-life balance over extended periods of time.

The most enjoyable part of the job is the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when interacting with peers from other organizations and agencies and sharing differing opinions and methodologies as a matter of course in the development of robust solutions.

Assists staff in various activities such as coordinating information flow, preparing materials for distribution, completing and processing expense reports, reimbursements and other forms, handling and processing sensitive and/or classified materials, creating and maintaining databases/files/reports, and/or reviewing/proofreading and processing proposals, documents, reports, and files. Assists in the preparation and control of records, statistics, and reports regarding operations, timelines, deliverables, etc. Assists in substantive communications with clients, advisory boards, and related activities. May assist in the preparation and monitoring of budgets.
Performs as support staff mentor and/or as a technical resource within the group and/or across the department; serves on task force committees and actively contributes to related activities. Works independently to structure project/administrative tasks to obtain the required outcome. Demonstrated ability to effectively use and integrate complex software applications in managing/completing workload tasks.
•	Good oral and written communication skills; ability to initiate and draft correspondence. Demonstrated initiative in developing solutions to meet complex administrative/technical needs of the workgroup. Very strong organizational skills required. Ability to exercise tact, courtesy, and judgment in working with all levels of staff. Demonstrated team player and effective in the role of technical resource and/or mentor. Demonstrated ability to maintain equilibrium and focus in a demanding, fast-paced work environment.

Rand has a good reputation outside of the organization. But it has much work to do to keep up with the changes in the industry. There's also this unstated but present discrimination against those who do not have an advanced degree, mainly a PhD. No matter how long you've worked in your field and established yourself, if you don't hold a PhD you are treated like a second-class citizen. You can't lead projects and instead are working for newly minted PhDs who have little idea about policy or even effective management. Few growth opportunities and lots of cliques. If you're in, you can find good projects and opportunities. If not, you're stuck working on random projects with little connection to your actual expertise area.

Be prepared to take a huge paycut too. This place prides itself on its reputation, it doesn't take feedback from its employees seriously enough to make changes. They think because so many people want to come to Rand still for its name, they can basically name the price and people will still want to work here. It's really not worth it because you're underpaid AND don't even get to do projects that line up with your background and expertise.

Think of rand as college, except with even more competition and more petty individuals. 

unless you have a phd or served in "high positions" in the government, you will not be treated and compensated according to your abilities. opportunities are difficult to come across. you basically have to wait your turn. this means someone has to leave the firm or more often you just have to elbow your way up. I spent 20 years in the private sector and was pretty well compensated at my old job. came to rand thinking I would be able to put my skills to good use and that I would be respected. boy, was I wrong. despite my 20 year industry experience, I am tasked around by newly minted phd in their late 20s with no real world work experience who have no clue about the realities of policy making and management. not to mention, I am grossly underpaid.

the company brands itself as multidisciplinary, so this means forget your skillsets. just make sure you're filling your time sheets and getting on projects you have absolutely no interest in nor are your skills right for the work. they don't care about development. as long as the sponsor is happy and the company cranks out those report books.



Researchers have complete freedom at RAND to find interesting work: either through internal labor market for existing projects, or entrepreneurially through your own sponsor contacts/grants. It's a kind of sink or swim freedom, and acts as a screener: if you can't find work, eventually you will be out the door.  

Complete freedom day to day, with very little management structure.  Work from home of the office, take time off as needed or work until midnight--it's about getting the work done.  But that also means a lack of coordination across the enterprise, or within the research units (Army, Air Force, Health, Office of OSD, Homeland Security, etc).  You build a network locally with folks you get to know, and then informally coordinate activities, share off leading, etc., but beyond your 10-20 person ego net, there's no structure or coordination.

Within that, you get to do incredibly varied, stimulating, compelling work on a range of problems.  Most of us work way more than 40 hours a week, but it's incredibly rewarding and fascinating work, and that extra effort is voluntary.

RAND Corp is full of very smart people working on very interesting projects. However, the organization's Internal Labor Market construct means that you will always be in a job-search mode within the organization, as projects are not assigned. You'll either need to convince others to bring you onto their projects or bring in external funding on your own. There is no formal process for applying for projects and there is a heavy emphasis on internal networking. This process can prove to be quite tricky as there is no real organizational cultural incentive for the well-established to support newer employees' networking efforts. The lack of a formal application process with regards to the Internal Labor Market means that there is some hesitancy of stepping out of the internal consensus, with regards to policy recommendations. This is not a place for contrarians.

Worked there as a temp for a month.  Never felt comfortable in the role, and often felt like I was being watched from the time I arrived to when I left.

I learned that people can be filled with a lot of egos in a think tank such as RAND.  The hardest part of the job was the constant hovering over the supervisor did while I was there.  When the assignment ended no one wanted to just say that I would not be continuing the assignment, yet when escorted out of the building every one pretended that they were interested in me personally.

Surprisingly, their computer system was wonky too lots of working around the "systems" and lots of disorganized rushed behaviour.

This place is for people that want to work at a higher level and can deal with silence throughout their day.

The one thing to know about RAND is they have a method to cull out undesirable research employees called the internal labor market. This means if you don't have enough work to cover your time you have a good chance of being fired as they say separated. This can be stressful but they operate under this system not matter the situation even if its a pandemic. That's my warning to anyone interested in RAND -- you have to be self-sufficient and self-reliant and management does not have much resources for policy analysts to connect with PIs on project and their diversity initiatives are total BS and they do not do much work on research that is race-related so look for other research organizations if that is your research focus.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Top research to help worldwide.  The people.  Interesting 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The number of proposals at one time can be stressful but worth every minute for the researchers and the world. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Respectful, collaborating, amazing and successful results to help all


What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Organized, meetings, proposal submission, reports, publications and success

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Research assistant 3 salaries reported	$53.67 per hour
Researcher 6 salaries reported	$138,667 per year
Administrative assistant 3 salaries reported	$69,767 per year
Surveyor 3 salaries reported	$56,880 per year
Senior scientist 3 salaries reported	$194,000 per year

Working at RAND Corporation: Company Overview and Reviews

RAND Corporation

RAND Corporation Ratings

Popular jobs at RAND Corporation

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected