I would greatly appreciate any input

I don't work at Exxon, but I also don't know many former Exxon employees. They are the best in the business for a reason. If you have an offer from them, I would consider it strongly.

by far the best. hands down.

Very conservative atmosphere. Expect nothing special like a 9-80 work schedule or half-day Fridays. Also, expect to wear a suit and tie to the office everyday. No jeans Fridays.

I am in grad school right now and 100% of those who work for XOM are looking for a change. That percentage for others that work for majors is MUCH smaller.

I don't think anyone has worked for Exxon for about 10 years now!

this depends on what your going to do for XOM. accounting- you'll get over worked and want to kill yourself within 4 months. I have heard good things about the engrs there...but some of the ones I work are pretty damn strange.

Worked there for 10yrs right out of school, but should have fled after 5. Great technical organization, top notch people, but... about as warm & fuzzy as a cement brick. No 9/80s, no bonus, conservative as hell. It's not an oil company -- it's a bank, run by lawyers, that happens to be in the oil business. Buy XOM stock, but work somewhere else. Unless...

If this is an entry-level job right out of school, and you are an engineer or geoscientist, then definitely consider it with the mindset that you'll get excellent training and be really marketable within 5 years. Expect to increase your salary by 20-50% after you leave... which, by the way, 1 out of every 2 do within 5 years. Not sure where the comment about not many Ex-XOM folks comes from. I'm with BP and there are a half dozen ex-XOM people on my floor alone.

[This message has been edited by canagian (edited 2/7/2009 4:05p).]

I'll second or third (since it is pretty common) the post by canagian right above me. They are the best run company in the world, but that doesn't mean you will want to work for them for long.

[This message has been edited by Huktaz04 (edited 2/8/2009 9:14p).]

quote:

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No 9/80s, no bonus

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and no mass layoffs. XOM is one of the most even-keel companies you will ever come across. They don't throw money at people in a boom, but they also don't shaft their employees in a bust.

WRT pay, they pay their top performers very well (at least in the engineering side). Everyone else gets industry avg (at best).

WRT suits, you only wear them if you work downtown. All other locations (again, at least engineering) are business casual.

It's a very type-A personality company. Very competitive rating and ranking. I agree with a lot of other comments - if you work there and excel, you will do well for yourself; if you work there and don't excel, you will at least have a nice launching pad to another company.

Their notorious for pigeon holing you in a particular position and letting you only do one piece of the puzzle. They do this for good reason b/c if they have 5 guys on a team each doing a small piece it shields them from hurting too badly if someone quits.

I can only speak to their Technology area in regards to the above statement.

They bank some record profits but never really see them trickle it down through the organization (besides the execs of course)

Houston IT Jobs!

Tech,
If by technology you mean IT, then you are probably right. Their support functions can be pretty brutal from what I hear. But the rest of the orgs (exploration, production, research, development, etc.) are probably the best I've ever seen in regards to developing and rotating their people to new assignments. My company (HP) will leave you in one job until you die. My wife has been able to change functional areas and assignments pretty regularly at Exxon.

tcam -- can't disagree too hard w/ anything you say, however...

Top performers do very well, but my experience is that only includes the top 10%. You can spend your entire career in XOM's "top third" (which I did before leaving), but if you don't crack the top 10% you will likely be making less than the industry average. This never used to be the case when competitor bonuses were small single-digit percentages, but now bonuses at other majors can be 25% or greater in a good year. There's no way XOM can compete w/ that by paying base salary only.

Also, the "mass layoff" argument is a little misleading if you confine yourself to only the majors. XOM had mass layoffs back in the mid-to-late 80s just like everyone else. Since then, other majors have probably had more rounds of occasional small cutbacks (5% or less), but XOM had their notorious "rank and yank" process where the bottom N% of staff coming out of a forced ranking program were shown the door every year. I personally know dozens of folks who this happened to in the years I worked there. I think they've backed off the "yank" in the past few years -- they still force rank -- but their voluntary attrition rate is easily double that of any other major, so they don't usually need to cut at all... they just let folks continue to walk out the door at a high rate and presto, no layoffs.

Good points can. My perspective on mass layoffs is a little skewed by working in the computer industry where rather than constantly trimming the fat, we just layoff entire groups/divisions en mass. At least it keeps things exciting!