Company: IBM
Date: 2013-12-15
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

High client expectations but no recognition when they are exceeded
Pros: Great opportunities, high client expectations but no recognition when they are exceeded

IBM is a well recognized brand, this often means there are many clients who come straight to IBM for help. Consequently there is no shortage of pre-sales opportunities from a wide variety of clients. 

There is a very strong belief in corporate values (Business Conduct Guidelines) that are reinforced in the  annual performance review process. 

Excellent knowledge base of technical material to tap in to. Collaboration with colleagues is positively encouraged.
Cons: Many unwieldy processes are unwieldy and just don’t make sense.

Performance review process is frustrating : even if everyone works hard and meets their objective there is a bell curve  that pre-determines the distribution over overall performance ranting. Meaning 10% of people will always be identified as under performing, and 10% of people will always be identified as over performing. Key objectives are utilization (ie. billable hours), give-back (ie. contributing to your technical community and building up re-usable assets).

Bonuses are appalling (<5%) even if you exceed your objectives. And you can forget about an annual increase in core salary.

Expenses system is tedious, allowances for overnight says are inadequate where you need to stay in an expensive part of the country. The expenses approval process is time consuming and tedious. 

Training opportunities are excellent but you will need to do it in your own time.