Pros
Let me start by saying that I am probably the biggest born skeptic. My resume is the epitome of jump to bump. I totally understand why people spend their entire careers here. For a person who has been lucky enough to have many great career opportunities come along in a fairly short career thus far, I am very happy to have accepted a position at Gensler. So far, its been no BS. Is it perfect? No Is it fair? Yes. The pros for a company of its size, in my experience; its been incredibly transparent from interview process to actual work environment. Not very many companies of this size or at all for that matter have the kind of company transparency that this place does. I can attest to that because part of the reason I have quit previous positions is that the companies lacked morals and transparency. That doesn't seem to be an issue here. Even for things that one considers cons, its is even across the board and fair. If this place is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, they are doing a really GOOOOD job. The amount of ego so far is few and far between. People here are incredibly confident, because they are good, but it is not egotistical on a whole. This "one firm firm" tag line that I kind of rolled my eyes at is actually really apparent here. People are willing to stay late, offer support to each other under tight deadlines, and try to be as cordial as possible. I think what makes the people here so great is that no one feels the need to put others down or stake claim to work because they are confident enough in themselves and believe that a projects success is everyone's success. They invest and support learning! They will pretty much pay for any certification, exam or class if you are willing to put in the extra time and take advantage of all the learning opportunities here. The smartest companies know that educated employees are good for both the employee and the company. We all know that it only costs you money to replace an retrain people. They invest in their employees but you have to be a self starter and take advantage of the opportunities! They hold people accountable and let young designers who show that they are motivated and responsible to have a lot more freedom than you would find at most other architecture firms of this size. If you want to grow and move up here, its pretty obvious that you can if you have the right attitude. The base pay is fair. Is it the highest in the industry? No The company makes up for this through profit sharing and stock options as well as bonuses. They pretty much put away your retirement money for you which is part of the reason many of its employees early retire. Its definitely a shared risk structure that might not be for everyone, but in my opinion is super smart. When the company does well, everyone does well. When its going through hard times, they probably don't have to lay off as many people because they will just cut benefits instead, which sucks but is better than losing your job. Also, the culture here is actually not as corporate as you would imagine, which is hard at 5,000 people. People try to handle their stress as best as possible and are friendly and approachable (that might just be the office and geographical location speaking here). You get to work on a lot of projects with pretty high profile clients. At least in my studio, no matter what the clients budget is, there are always meetings from the get go about how to deliver good design work. It usually only takes me a couple months to figure out whether I want to invest any real time with a company or if they are really interested in investing in me. I know the difference between good and bad jobs because I've been lucky enough to have worked both. If things continue to go like they have been I have no doubt that I will be at this place for many years. Again, not perfect and it might not be for everyone but nothing in life is because one size does not fit all. Most of my career has been at small or mid size firms and I never thought I would ever work for the largest firm in the world but I have to surprisingly say, I'M SIPPING THE KOOLAID! They didn't feed me a load at my interview...I asked them if I would work long hours, and they said yes under deadlines. I asked them if they felt like they truly mentored younger staff, they said it isn't perfect but we are trying to be better about it. Sign of a good company and good interviewers.... you don't lie to people and tell them what you think they want to hear because they are going to find out sooner or later. Be honest with them from the get go, even about the drawbacks. It says, we are honest and can admit our flaws. No better way to build loyalty and trust from the beginning. Lastly, after this very long winded review, I had job offers from other places and one of the biggest reasons I decided to see if this was the right fit was because the CEO(s) get a 90 percent rating on glassdoor. For a person who did their research, it is incredibly difficult for a company of Gensler's size to get the kind of ratings it does, in any industry. Compare them to other competing firms or to companies in other industries....numbers usually don't lie.
Cons
Lower than average PTO days for new employees...That's all I have at the moment. Late hours but that's Architecture and its not every day here. At least they verbally appreciate it (lots of please and thank you which is non existent at most places and goes a long way for moral) and depending on what office you are, you get paid over time.
