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Charles River Laboratories
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30 reviews

Charles River Laboratories Employer Reviews

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A lot of fun people to work with.
Research Technician III (Former Employee), Shrewsbury, MA – April 18, 2013
Pros: good people to work with.
Cons: hard to make advancements.
I enjoyed all my years at CRL and would still be there today had there not been a lay off.
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Small, close-knit group
Laboratory Assistant (Former Employee), Osceola, WI – April 18, 2013
Great experience with hands on and dissection techniques. Good work hours, but dificult location.
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Animal care
Animal Care Technician II (Former Employee), Baltimore, MD – April 9, 2013
Husbandry and care of animals and facility. Like most of the co-workers.
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weekends and holidays required, along with off hours sometimes 2 am
Research Technician (Current Employee), Horsham, PA – March 13, 2013
the activities commity is nice to have to make the work place a bit more enjoyable. Its nice to start out with 3 weeks vacation.
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Lots of promises with no delivery!
Finance (Former Employee), Wilmington, MA – January 29, 2013
Pros: good benefits
Cons: very much a nepotistic run company
Good benefit package, however management focuses on certain individuals for promotions. Promotions are not based on merit or knowledge, but purely on who you are. If you point out something or someone that is out of line with company policy, expect to go nowhere.
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Large workload but great benefits
Technologist on Wilmington Response Team (Former Employee), Wilmington, MA – January 28, 2013
Pros: benefits and flexible hours. plenty of sick and vacation time
Cons: huge workload
Charles river gives an outstanding amount of work and the management does not give any slack. If you have a hard time to keep up they do not try their best to accomodate you. There definatley is favorites here but the environment is not to bad. My work is very mundane and at first seems overwhelming and hard to understand, but after getting it, it is – more... repetitive and boring. – less
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Excellent Laboratory
Research Technician (Current Employee), Reno, NV – November 19, 2012
Pros: great compensation, great work environment and management
Cons: long hours
Overall, the best place I have worked. Great Management, great compensation, challenging and great place to grow as a professional.
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Good Pharmaceutical Job!
Animal Care Technician (Former Employee), Boston, MA – November 18, 2012
Learn a lot from other technician. Great place to work with small and large animals. Management was okay.Great location to work.
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Great team to work with, expect long hours and little to no advancement opportunities
Research Support Technician (Current Employee), Ashburn, VA – November 4, 2012
Pros: excellent facility (hhmi), great food at in house cafe, good pay with plenty of overtime
Cons: overtime is expected not requested, punitive rather than rewarding environment
Great place to start in this field. You gain great experience, but learning and advancement opportunities are limited. Due to these limitations, long hours, minimal pay raises, and the punitive culture of the off-site management staff, turnover is very high.
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Some managers have power trips
Lab Technician (Former Employee), Sparks, NV – October 17, 2012
I don't like what this place does to animals, but it is mandatory by law, so it must be done by someone, charles river is very professional about how they experiment on animals.
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Real Team Environment
Customer Service Rep (Former Employee), Wilmington, MA – October 16, 2012
I love my time working there, unfortunaly I was got in a layoff, I only worked there for 5 months as a perm, love to go back there, it was a real team environment.
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Great co-workers and a nice benefit package
Technical Trainer (Former Employee), Tacoma, WA – October 13, 2012
Pros: very nice benefits package
Cons: towards the end of employment, a lack of work.
A nice culture of diverse employees. It was an enjoyable place to work.
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Repetitive work
Technician II (Current Employee), Wilmington, MA – September 12, 2012
Pros: good benefits package
Cons: little change on day to day activities
Repetitive work, little to no change on day to day activities
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Drama! Drama! Drama! & ITS NEVER ENOUGH!
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE (Former Employee), Reno, NV – September 10, 2012
Pros: bennies
Cons: its never enough!!
Unfortunately, very selfish and uncomfortable work environment.

Pros
1. Benefits are descent, but you'll pay a ton for average medical insurance.
2. There are still some good people working there, but not many left...many of the good ones have either been laid off (in 1 of the many rounds of lay offs, which caused extremely depressing morale!)...or – more... jumped ship due to the overall poor & confusing practices/procedures, along with hurtful & disrespectful treatment of the employees. For those good ones left (you know who you are!), you guys are Troopers man!

Cons
1. Where do I even begin; Maybe start with It USED to be a great place to work years ago...
2. Poor managenent, horrible politics, major clicks, hurtful back stabbers, and brown nosing is definitely required!
3. Willing to cut major important corners to either make or save a buck.
4. If you have a family or a life, don't expect them to care, because they don't! Some are even willing to sacrifice their families just "to be important". Others are so focused on clawing their way to the top & yes, prepare to get trampled!!
5. Can't trust anybody, not even HR!! ...especially HR!! – less
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– September 18, 2012

I can certainly attest to the uncomfortable work environment. From day one I felt like the my counterparts didn't want me there. In fact since I left in May of 2008, my former position has been vacant at least four times. Benefits cannot make up for a hostile work environment and lack of job satisfaction.

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it sucked
Study Specialist I (Former Employee), Reno, NV – August 30, 2012
Pros: good money
Cons: no life
If you do not want a life of your own please work there otherwise they treat their workers less than human.
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They get you with the pay.
"Animal Care Technician III" (Former Employee), Chicago, IL – August 27, 2012
Pros: the pay is above average for this type of work
Cons: poor management and too many office politics
The company is ok to work for if you like to brown nose and plenty of office politics. There is a lot of favoritism in the Chicago location. I hope that this isn't the case in all the locations. I would also like to mention that the management of this location needs serious retraining.
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Great place to get experience
Research Assistant II (Current Employee), Reno, NV – August 26, 2012
This company is great for getting experience, but not real long term career potential if you don't have a PhD or aren't willing to put in 7-8 years before you have an above entry-level position. All my coworkers were terrific and made the job much more bearable. . Management really needs improvement as it often felt like policies were changing on a – more... month to month basis and workloads amongst workers were very unbalanced. Definitely expect long hours – less
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Thought I would retire there
Study Coordinator II (Former Employee), Shrewsbury, MA – July 11, 2012
Pros: learned alot; awesome groowth potential
Cons: no work life balance - i can remember sleeping in my car for timepoints as a tech...
Decent place to work. You arent paid very much but you do learn a ton!! Def room for growth. Nice place to get your feet wet in the industry.
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Best company to work for
Animal Technician II (Former Employee), Wilmington, MA – July 4, 2012
Amazing benefits, great coworkers, good salaries. Great job locations and opportunities to advance.
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poor
Research Associate, Formulations Laboratory (Former Employee), Horsham, PA – June 26, 2012
Depends on who you know personally, they will fire you for nothing.
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Rodel – January 24, 2013

sad but extremely true

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About Charles River Laboratories

Chickens and rats have an important part to play in Charles River Laboratories International's specialty portfolio of medical – Read more