Cleveland-Cliffs reviews

3.3

58% would recommend to a friend

(679 total reviews)
avatar

Lourenco Goncalves

64% approve of CEO

48% positive business outlook

Cleveland-Cliffs has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 679 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Cleveland-Cliffs employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

679 reviews
1.0
Aug 4, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some of your coworkers can be nice, but no one will respect you. The management will give you free food occasionally in lieu of a raise.

Cons

Pay is average and not worth it for the forced overtime, 50+ hrs per week is normal. Raises are nothing. They might tell you you'll be doing engineering during the interview but in reality you'll be babysitting the union people who do the actual work. The only reason Cliffs hires new college grads is to save money on labor. They know that most leave within a year or two but they don't care. A lot of the "senior engineering" people at Cliffs are just associates who because they've been at Cliffs for too long doing anything but engineering, they can't apply anywhere else and are now totally stuck career-wise. Also you get basically no vacation time. When I started I was given five days for the year.

3.0
Nov 27, 2024

Good Organization

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good management support structure on the site.

Cons

Support from higher in the chain can be a challenge.

1.0
Sep 11, 2024

Just say NO

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Honestly can’t think of any

Cons

No overtime pay, unless it’s over 4 hours or more, and then you will get straight time. But your boss will want you there 10, 11 hours a day. So you will not be paid for those extra 2 or 3 hours. On shutdown day when you work over 4 hours, you will get 4 hours of straight time. This really sucks. You will also be expected to answer your phone at 2am, leave your kids to come into work while they’re opening presents on Christmas morning, and respond to your crew calling you 24/7. You will not get paid for waking up to take a call or coaching your guys on how to do something over the phone. You will be expected to excel, but will be given zero training. Zero. Just throw you to the wolves and expect you to figure out their system for payroll, writing work orders, ordering parts, creating POs, closing out PMs, etc. Their payroll system is quite literally from 1993, and the parts ordering system is down about 75% of the time. No one will help you learn. They figure if they had to struggle, you should too. If you mess these things up, you will be branded an idiot. You will have absolutely no onboarding. No tour, no introduction to your team, no classes on your process- nothing. And they wonder why no one stays longer than 18 months. The health insurance really sucks. It costs me 6k every January 1st to keep my family in health insurance. The bonuses are hit or miss. You cannot depend on them. I got one that was 4k, but the rest have been only a few hundred dollars. HR will tell you they’re only paying you 95k or whatever but with your bonuses, it’ll be more like 110k. This is NOT true. Steel is cyclical and you cannot depend on a good bonus every quarter. You will regret your decision in 3 months or less if you take a job here. Save your sanity and don’t waste your time- accept a role somewhere else.

Viewing 10 - 12 of 679 Reviews

Glassdoor has 742 Cleveland-Cliffs reviews submitted anonymously by Cleveland-Cliffs employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cleveland-Cliffs is right for you.