Great benefits, overly political and dishonest when dealing with promotions/career advancement - Graphic Designer NIKE Employee Review

2.0
7 Jul 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great insurance, health care, etc. The campus is nice, feels like your in college. Going to the Armstrong gym at lunch was great, my favorite thing about working there. A lot of nice, talented people. Working on high profile projects. Good stepping stone to other opportunities. Portland is a cool town.

Cons

The BIGGEST gripe by myself(actually why I left) and many, many others is the unfair promotion practices. It is their HR policy to promote from within first, etc., but almost all the higher up jobs go those coming in from outside the company. And if you do get bumped up from within it is because you are buddies with a VP or already have a family member in a position of power. Obviously that is not true in every case, but more often than not it is. I had meetings with HR about this and they acted shocked like this was going on, and told me and others it was against company policy. I get it's a big company and there are games to play, but it made me so sick I couldn't take it anymore. And I wasn't the only one. It is funny that for a place with such great benefits, high profile, etc, I have never been around more people unhappy with their jobs. A big reason is management is terrible. It really felt that they needed a VP of the VP's. It was that ridiculous with management overlap. Along those lines was a real lack of accountability on all levels too. That was sad, it makes everyone's life harder when no one is ever fired, and if you truly screw up you just get moved laterally. Once again, the buddy system at work. As you can see I feel strongly about the Cons. Even though I'm glad I worked there for the experience, I'm even happier that I left.

Explore other reviews about NIKE

5.0
1 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Work Life Balance - Benefits - Great people

Cons

- Constant re-orgs and recent business performance has made it hard to work

5.0
11 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This started as a summer job during COVID and extended for the next couple of years. I loved working here and in my experience had a good managers. I personally like Nike so the discount was a big perk!

Cons

The main con is pay. I was paid near minimum wage with little increase YOY. If you want to pursue corporate there are rotations that become available at the retail level, but very competitive.

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