CERN

3.0

Apr 10, 2016

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- A very competitive salary for most people. - Multiculturual and multinational organization working with people from all over Europe. - A very generous holiday scheme (6 weeks + christmas break) and insurance scheme. - You get time to develop yourself and to steer your work in your direction. Not so many strict deadlines like in consulting for example. - Close to the breathtaking alps.

Cons

- It's very hard to get a permanent staff contract. If you start out as Technical Student, then go on to Fellow, then to staff, you will have to work 8-11 years for the organization before you can be considered for a permanent position. Everyone knows this and I think it leads to unhealthy competition between people on limited contracts, it's a lot of prestige going around. I also think the contract policy prevents a good distribution of nationalities. I think it scares away people coming from countries with low unemployment rates and a stronger tradition for permanent contracts. At the same time, every opening at CERN is flooded with high quality applicants from the south of Europe where the unemployment rates are high, so CERN's incentives to change this isn't very strong. - Bureaucracy and hierarchy. Different groups of people working with the same thing, in competition instead of together. I found this demotivating. - The salary is high but most buildings are old and most computer equipment are outdated. I find this odd. - 6 days paternity leave. - Some male-dominated parts of CERN is perhaps not the best place for women. You will have to be strong to work there, and put up with the occasional sexual joke.

CERN Response

10y

Thank you for your review and for your comments. We appreciate the time you have taken to share your views of CERN on Glassdoor. Concerning your comment on staff contracts we would like to highlight that in a previous affiliation with CERN is in no way necessary nor a pre-requisite to obtain a staff contract at CERN. TO illustrate this, in 2015 2/3 of staff contracts were awarded to candidates from outside the Organization, with no previous affiliation. This is a cornerstone of our recruitment policy, as our mission is to employ a diverse and international a workforce representative all of our 26 Member and Associate Member States. A multitude of actions and initiatives, such as outreach events in less represented countries, aim to enlarge and harmonize the presence of all aforesaid nationalities at CERN. Taking into account that CERN dates back to 1954 the infrastructure of such a large scale Organization has little to no correlation to the remunerations granted to our employees that are aligned with Geneva’s elevated standards. Lastly we deeply regret reading your comment on male-dominance at CERN and the associated experience you had. CERN strongly condemns such behavior and the Code of Conduct, based around our five core values (integrity, professionalism, commitment, creativity and diversity) is in place to ensure we work in a context of mutual respect, appreciating differences, fostering equality and promoting collaboration, in embracing everyone regardless of their gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or personal situation. Should you wish to discuss this further, we invite you to share your thoughts and experiences on this or any other matter with Recruitment.Service@cern.ch. Thank you once more for your review. We wish you the best for the future!

Excellent on salary and benefits, bad on contract policies and hierarchy - Software Engineer CERN Employee Review

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