Dell

Dell's CEO went to a football school, and it shows. Esprit de corps is pretty high, even during the darkest days. During the go-private drama, almost no one wanted Michael Dell gone, which is saying a lot.

Did I mention team spirit? The company does a lot to make you feel part of a vision, and there's a LOT of communication to make employees aware of what's happening all across it.

Very liberal and forward-looking IT policy. Engineers are admins of their own machines. Telecommuting and flexible scheduling is strongly encouraged.

Employees are empowered and made to feel like they can do anything if they have the idea for it.

Never had a single negative meeting there.

Unlike most companies, Dell is results-oriented as opposed to facetime or process-oriented.

Ad-hoc structure with no micromanagement.

Very ethical.

Standard 50% up to 5% 401k match.

Initial compensation is in the 80s percentile for the position.

Lots of opportunity to do a wide variety of different things.

Generally good management.

The best talent management system I've ever had. Never once did I feel undervalued while there.

Household brand name. You say you work for Dell, people's ears prick up and they take you very seriously.

Very self-motivated and entrepreneurial. You create tasks for yourself as opposed to having them assigned to you.

The "Everything's good" atmosphere can hide serious problems. Layoffs come without warning, and even after good reviews. Even then, the company's severance package is very generous.

Ad-hoc structure weakens management, which means it can be very hard to implement new policies because no one feels like they have to follow them.

Merit raises are meager. The only way to significantly raise compensation is to get promoted. This makes sense on some level, but you can have a spectacular year and get nearly nothing for it.

A lot of internal business projections are effectively made up.

Management is slow to adapt to market changes.

Adapt faster to external changes. Realize presentation is just as important as technical content. No one will buy into what we're selling if our sales materials look dated or half-baked. Establish best practices and enforce them.