Company: IBM
Date: 2014-12-20
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Good resume padder for recent graduates, don't overstay your welcome
Pros: *You get an alright entry level experience of financial planning and analysis for a Fortune 30 company
*Great networking opportunities and you work with some incredible and brilliant people
*Awesome work life balance, but at the cost of performing unfulfilling humdrum work
*You get really good at Ping Pong, and they have a private disc golf course on site that is top quality
Cons: *Rochester COE has no room for advancement. Your promotions = greater workload for the same pay. While there are boundless opportunities within the company at large, COE's are viewed as back office support roles and there is no clear progression to advance within finance or even horizontally transfer to a different location or country. IBM is at the cutting edge of IT, some of the growth initiatives are amazingly exciting and progressive (ie. Watson) but the COE is too far detached from the excitement of overall company. Aside from the occasional meeting or education initiative you forget that you are even working for an top IT company.
*IBM doesn't practice what they preach, we sell Cognos TM1 and BI software to our GBS clients yet Financial Analysts are forced to use archaic and outdated systems, software and tools
*While IBM looks good on your resume, your day to day tasks and skiils are so limited in scope and specialized specifically to IBM and your role, that you don't personally develop many transferable skills.
*"Restlessly Reinvent" is a ruse - every aspect of IBM is ineffiecient and there isn't much room to challenge this status quo
*Full Time FA salary for Rochester MN, COE = $41,000 - even with cost of living adjustment this is significantly low compared to the market


*Understand what your getting yourself into as a Financial Analyst - I took this role as a co-op while I finished my last class required to graduate and then went directly into a full time role because I lacked substantial internship experience. It is a good experience in that you learn what jobs you don't want to turn into your career. If you are content with putting in your hours and performing unimportant work than it is a safe gig, but if your a go getter I wouldn't suggest staying for over a year.