IBM reviews

The job is basic. Lots of distributed system, huge amount of administration to get job done. 20 or so different databases with customer information. One size fits all enterprise, no exceptions, management not capable of making decisions or influencing anything. Location in Ballycoolin is appallingly old-fashioned. Little natural lighting, canteen food is horrendous. Bonus is paid on an exponential curve, and capped at the bottom. Unless you reach at least 80% of your number you don't get any bonus at all. It's also capped on top. Plan documents are only communicated after you sign the contract, so no visibility into to be expected salary. Bonus calculation takes very long 2-3 months and cannot be tracked or checked.

Despite all the HR rhetoric around "we do everything, so you can have multiple career paths within the same company" the reality is that business need is absolute number 1, above investing in their people, developing logical approaches to client relationships etc. There's a huge disconnect between the product recruiters sell you (6 month rotations in different areas, develop your skills, opportunity for exposure to strategy work, analytics) is extremely different from the reality (a lot of need for technical or administrative grads, account partners are only interested in the skills you have and will keep you in a role for 12 months+ to use them). Resource management is so convoluted that in practice the only way to get on to projects is to know the right people, which results in a bit of a "boys club" atmosphere on some accounts. And obviously lots and lots of systems that you have to go through for everything from reclaiming expenses to trying to be promoted, none of which seem to integrate at all.