IBM Reviews

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Ability to determine your own destiny in how much effort you do to make yourself successful

Cons – Process
Not personal
can get lost in the larger organisation

Advice to Senior Management – Look after your key staff
Pay well
Listen to them when they need advice and help

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – IBM is capable of delivering game changing technologies and solutions.

Cons – IBM's consulting business is increasingly focused around it's own "blue" software products.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than a year

Pros – Some excellent people work here, and in some projects, where are intelligent, driven individuals making things happen.

Cons – .. but there are many mediocre people who only know how to roll out additional red tape.

Advice to Senior Management – IBM is a process driven organisation.. The process makes things achievable and repeatable, but there are many things which shouldn't be repeated, and *process flexibility* is where the customer gets the best value.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at IBM full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Work life balance is better than average comparing to big 4. Options to work from home. Family friendly if you have got kids to send to school or pick up. Slow paced environment. Good if you are a contractor too.

Cons – Pay is lower than market rate. Too many noncompetitive people who are relaxing back and getting paid some big money. The theory of putting a bunch of grads or unskilled people out to client is a total fail. Most talented people will not stay for more than 5 years.

Advice to Senior Management – Retention of talented people is very poor.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Truly globally integrated company with lots of learning for people starting their careers

Cons – Too much emphasis on processes which most of the time is used as a cover for red tape. Layers and layers of management trying to manage a single resource ultimately resulting in unproductivity.

Advice to Senior Management – There are lots of manager but very few leaders. Senior management thinks and acts like officers of the Roman empire.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than a year

Pros – some mates
sick leave (and you'll need it if you get stressed, overworked, underutilised)

Cons – Virtually no benefits
No formal training just a 2 hour how to setup your PC do your timesheets and read mail
No R&D
No Innovation
Lied to about the size of bonus pool when insourced (told Par was 6%)
Low Morale
Staff are only kept to drain knowledge to offshore
Entire teams of contractors let go
Overtime not paid at all (lucky to take time of in lieu)
IBM Assumes you are there for support
Forced to have a mobile (paid for self if contractor) to be contactable for support
Cost saving is the top priority of company
No computer mouse, docking station, monitors are provided
Managers typically have 40 people under them
Manager may be in a different city (1000 km away)
No training
No on-the-job learning
The be all and end of is CIRATS and SHC
Poor Culture
No pay increases
PBC system is about who-you-know and schmooze with
NO interest from management in Career development
Survivors left wondering when the axe will fall
Useless office tools (assuming you're not running Linux, in which case it's worse)
Management and PMs are mostly useless (some exceptions)
What do DPEs do?
Clients are overbilled for incompetent work

Advice to Senior Management – value your staff

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Some good consultants with great skills

Cons – Process driven organisation which makes it slow and costly
Do not focus on career development
only focused on shareholder return

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on staff

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Security, work life balance, skilling and training benefits. Large network of people and global.

Cons – Dealing with lower skilled people globally. Huge barriers in language, skill level and responsibility matrix. Frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management – Less GDF movement. Ends up coming back anyway. Clear out the low performers, they have too many places to hide and for far too long.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time

Pros – Great work/life balance
Pretty much allowed to be yourself - good autonomy
Reasonably varied work (sometimes)
Can be interesting if all your ducks fall into line and you have a good team working on a good project

Cons – Huge administrative overhead
Lots of incompetent people
Perverse incentives created by poorly thought out performance metrics
Feel like an employee ID number, not like a person
Too much bidding for work that we want to win, not that we can do

Advice to Senior Management – Looking up there is little to inspire me

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – working with IBM since 2009, very good Technology company, respected global firm ,great chances to work on large scale project,s smart people that you can learn from

Cons – Large organization which makes it hard for individuals to have their say and to be heard
Don’t really care about individuals, profit always comes first
relatively slow career progression

Advice to Senior Management – take care of your people , they are the most important asset

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company