(L)eadership (D)evelopment (P)rogram - Great Start to My Career
Pros
- Fresh out of college, most students wouldn't expect the level of responsibility or opportunities that ION offers to the LDP joiners. Within the first few months of the job, my LDP class was given the task of recruiting the next class of students. We were essentially asked to help build the new culture of the company. This continued to happen for the classes to follow. I believe this created a good sense of trust between LDP, the company, and upper management as well as the CEO. There are other countless projects that I myself and other LDP members have worked on with similar levels of responsibility and significant impact on the company. - The global reach and opportunities are what I believe are the most unique about this company. A lot of people within the company get the chance to travel for business, but the LDP program especially gives fantastic chances to travel, or even live, outside the country for a temporary amount of time. - The other great aspect of the company is that you have chances to move to all different sectors of the business if you're not happy with where you're currently placed. Obviously this takes negotiation and understanding from both sides, but the option is there nevertheless.
Cons
- Being a global company with so many offices across the world, it can be hard to manage everyone in the same manner. However, I think it's a big responsibility of the company to ensure that all offices receive the same treatment/benefits so that you create this fluent sense of inclusiveness. After visiting multiple offices, I get the sense that the attention level is not the same for everyone. - The LDP program definitely has an 'inside scoop" on what is happening within the company, but everyone outside of the program sometimes feel things are not that transparent. I think this is something the company is trying to improve and should improve sooner rather than later - Salary, bonuses, and raises have proven to be the achilles' heel of the company. Sometimes we lose or never secure great workers over compensation.
