Verizon

This was my first company out of college, and I stayed as a management employee for 11 years. I got a lot of on-the-job training and experience that has made me feel confident enough in my skills to take on new challenges. I really like that they promote diversity in the workplace. The benefits are great. I took advantage of all of them, and I would recommend that everyone does so.

The selling points are:

• 401k match
• Health benefits
• Tuition assistance
• Learning center
• Development and leadership workshops/opportunities

Salary is competitive, and depending on the organization you join, there are plenty of opportunities to move up. Depending on your organization's budget, you can get a hefty bonus and raise. Some positions are open to work at home and remote locations. I was recently laid off and was given a decent severance package, so if that's important to you, Verizon will take care of you in that regard.

It's just not stable. I don't know how I survived 11 years.

There was always a big RIF (reduction in force, or layoff) at least once a year across all areas of the organization. I know this is just the nature of Corporate America today, so I can't pinpoint this on just Verizon.

But it sucks because each business unit handles this differently. Some organizations don't allow lateral movement to other groups, so you may be stuck as a "lifer" if you don't want to grow under one group.

Office politics are huge. Good ole' boy mentality and cronyism run deep. A lot of people get paid way too much to do so little, and take advantage of it. The infrastructure and hiring process just make it easy for people to do so. Because of all the RIF's, I believe people only had enough motivation just to keep themselves afloat.

For IT: Invest in keeping the present human resources. If staff is underperforming, I can understand letting them go in RIFs. However, if an employee is doing well, find another way to cut costs. Verizon wastes way too much money on unused assets.

It's easier to decommission unused servers or hardware versus retiring an evolving and knowledge-hungry employee.