Pros
- It brought me market-wide exposure to all sectors, It can't happen to those that remain passively in their daily routine because managers are overloaded, but proactive actions and curiosity for self-growth will always bring results - Career evolution. It's not easy to evolve because it's a complex company, the opportunity is there for everyone but to make it, a lot of effort and self-improvement work is necessary. Fundamentals are demonstrating to be trustworthy, capable and reliable, and having high levels of assertiveness, resourcefulness, communication as well as the willingness to wait and listen to feedback until all the personal gaps are resolved. - Gain Technical and functional growth from the market leaders. ALTEN is not an OEM, but it works for all of them, which gives the opportunity to learn their mechanism and port them from a role to another, in my case I've experienced personally several sectors and several roles within the organisation and I gained a lot from all of them. - Challenging environment. Consulting is tougher than other industries, but in ALTEN particularly, there isn't a culture of spoon-feeding trainings, there is a lot of trust on demonstrating capability and self-growth being literally "thrown" into learning while delivering totally new things, it happened to me in all roles I had, in different contexts. This approach motivated me to work harder and learn/grow faster, it can be, however, a doble-edged sword effect for those that can't make it. - The team and the culture. Almost everyone I worked with since I joined ALTEN is great, from a mix of technical roles, support functions and international collaborations. Everyone takes their responsibilities and despite being often overloaded, everyone finds the time to make it work. The culture is also very diverse and international with a close connection, in the London office for instance, everyone knows everyone, often naturally bonding together even after work. - Fair promotions and progression. For as much as it's difficult being promoted (and if there still are gaps there is no chance it'll ever happen), there is a system of achievement and rewards that drives progression that is totally fair, those that becomes leaders, managers, or take particular key roles into the organisation, it's because they worked hard to deserve it, and most of the time results are well repaid in the new roles to allow them to get to the next step. It happened to me as well as many others around. - It build strong characters. This organisation has a lot of complexities, and some are left there on purpose to enable people to figure it out and make it on their own. This creates a personal solidity when used to the tough expectations and procedure. The gain is rigor, in processes excellence, in time-management, in technical knowledge, and many other aspects depending on the role.
Cons
- Some gaps in central structure. If for personal growth and pride of making it with one own's strength it's great, sometimes the fact that everyone is overloaded causes some processes being a bit overlooked or positions being left vacant due to lack of suitable candidates. (often shifting priorities, leading to more overloading on the current team, and sometimes causing unpredictable changes happening in the business) - Effort required to exceed expectations. Targets for the leading positions are extremely aggressive. As a consultant it's not much of a problem because growth is rewarded with efficiency and project performance, but in the business or technical leadership it's pretty much impossible to deliver the maximum expected with a standard weekly workload.