Procter & Gamble reviews

It is a very good company if you join after College. The entire career path is structured for fresh grads. There are set durations of assignments and growth. After few levels it is mostly up or out or one has to agree to stay at a certain level for rest of the life and retire. If one performs well, is lucky and builds connections over time, one can grow to the CEO level. AG Lafley or Bob McDonald joined as ABMs. Only people in Marketing rise to that level. The company hires few experienced individuals every year as they may not have the skills in-house. These people really have a tough time. If one has experience up to 10 years years of experience, one should be ready to start career from entry-level. For people with experience who are not desperate they should stay away from considering P&G. Most experienced hires leave within an average of 13 months. They are not treated well. There are cases of people who joined with 10 years of experience and even after 12 years at P&G, they are still sitting at the same level. They do not get any benefit of past experience. Rather, it is a discredit. They are left out by peers or seniors who joined P&G after college. Employees from acquired companies are not treated well because P&G is very inward focused and most people working had worked only for P&G in their life and never had exposure to working in any other company. They suffer from "frog in a well" syndrome. They do not consider people from acquired companies or experienced from other companies as P&Gers.

You will be required to change roles or move every several years to advance. You will be rated against a scale with your peers, where the bottom quartile (whether deserving to be there or not) will be filtered out the organization. For this reason, there is a strong competitive attitude with little incentive for people to actually help one another. You will not receive training or guidance on your job, and will be at the mercy of you manager to defend you during a ratings session. You will deal with people who are good, but also ones that are manipulative and self-serving. You will rarely feel good about yourself or your work at the end of the day.