Company: IBM
Date: 2011-05-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former

Don't plan a career here
Pros: Name recognition of IBM still carries weight in the industry. Just look at the stock price. Even though you will be under paid and have limited resources available to you the IBM job on your resume will open doors.
Cons: Frustrating, if you like to get things done. If you are one of those people that like to have focus and see the fruits of you labor then IBM is not for you. Over the years IBM has abandoned most of its core values and has become focused on the short term results on the balance sheet. That means cutting to bolster profitability, even if it means crippling the companies ability to innovate. At a recent meeting in Tampa the Head of HR was speaking to IBM employees. He was asked what the company was going to do about the loss of its most talented employees. The response was that the data he had said that IBM was retaining the most productive people. There is both truth and blatant misrepresentation in that statement. Spreadsheets can be made to say anything you need them to say and IBM has become experts at deciding what the outcome of the numbers should be before they gather them. So if you just measure metrics like time on email, or reporting timeliness yes the most productive paper pushers are still there. If you measured productivity as an SMB would, IBM is at a junction as precarious as it was in the 80's but did not know it.