IBM reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(107,222 total reviews)
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Arvind Krishna

76% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

IBM has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 107,222 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The IBM employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

107K reviews
3.0
Mar 24, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

IBM is very flexible. Working from home is great.

Cons

The CbD program flaunts itself as some kind of recent graduate mutually beneficial training program to groom you to be a consultant, but don't let that fool you. I remember when I first started, I came here to glassdoor to check the reviews and I found one where the reviewer was talking about being laid off. He said "Dont be fooled, you can be laid off just like everyone else!" I talked to one of my peers about it and they said that does not happen to CbD'ers as long as your trying really hard to get staffed, which I was trying my absolute hardest. The problem is IBM hired way to many resources. There were hundreds of recent grads like me trying to find projects. Sure enough, a year later it happened to me too. They tell you that they will find you projects to work on and that you only need to put in a little effort to find them, but the truth is you are competing with everyone around you for projects, and they (Management) dont do much of anything to help you. If you go to long without a project, they will fire you. Yes, I said fire you, because they make it seem like your getting "laid off" but from a HR standpoint, you are being fired, which means your next employer will know about it. They not only not "launched my career", but they actually significantly damaged my reputation in the working world. Many IBM Managers still have this manage by fear mentality also and a very serious fraternal style attitude where the newer consultants are treated like were worthless.

1.0
Aug 18, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Having the IBM name on your business card still gets you a seat at the table with many companies, both large and small. The company is truly a global organization, and there are opportunities for international work and assignments if that is something you want for your career - that is assuming that the hiring freeze that has been in place for most of the year is lifted...

Cons

Leadership says one thing, however they do not back up their words with actions. The company baits you in with what they call a reference salary - job seeker beware, this is not the salary you will actually get paid as (in most cases) you will be issued an incentive plan letter AFTER you start and will be told about your comp plan that be anywhere from an 8 to 18% reduction in the reference salary of what you were expecting. What this means is that in the event you ask for an 8% raise over your current salary with your current employer, and they give it to you, when you start, that 8% will actually be null and void as they take that back to incentivize you over and above your agreed upon commissions numbers - it is a bait and switch in my opinion. In addition to the items mentioned above, the company can't decide on a direction, and therefore the are constant reorganizations. Since joining IBM in December, I personally have been a part of three reorganizations where my role has changed. Not only does this impact the customer, but it makes is almost impossible for a sales person or sales manager to succeed as their teams are constantly changing and there is no opportunity to actually build the pipeline necessary to succeed. Lastly, the biggest issue of all (in my opinion) is the morale within the organization is at an all time low. This is due in large part to the items mentioned above, as well as things like IBM increasing your quota half way through the year with no justification, and making you move from a remote employee to an onsite employee, but also you couple that with the fact that IBM has experienced 22 straight quarters of revenue decline and employees wonder why we continue to try and stick this out.

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