Pros
The company has tons of open positions if you are qualified for the role. New opportunities are always available. The pay is OK for a 40h place (the usual in Montreal is 37.5) but not spectacular. Healthcare benefits can be top tier if you are willing to pay more than the basic stuff, but the extra stuff can get expensive.
Cons
Management is very much a hit or miss thing. Some managers are very competent and care deeply about culture and their team’s health but I’m afraid this is not the norm. The usual is to be cutthroat and push people to fill in contractual obligations that will render most humans bonkers. While assigned you follow the client’s schedule and put the extra hours if any to the client’s benefit, but you get very little margin for flexibility around those hours. Some managers will demand that you spend your 40 hours in the client’s location despite not being a requirement from the client. Tie management is a farce. Whenever you are in CGI locations OR you get visited on-site by CGI direction, you are required to wear a tie no matter if the client requires this obsolete dress code. Managers seem to have to enforce this rule no matter the cost and you will be scorned upon for not having one ready in your backpack. Truly an obsession on form rather than content delivered to client. I doubt clients talk about the tie during their regular surveys of the contract’s performance. Beware that if you are on the bench, you are expendable. You may need to accept roles that you have no interest or even are poorly qualified to fill. The pressure is subtle but very much present. If you are on the bench for a few weeks, the pressure will build until you a) pick up a role b) get terminated CGI is not a nurturing environment. If you are a consultant, your role is to bring in money by providing services. You do not have the luxury of working on the company’s portfolios as they are costly initiatives are budgets aren’t allocated.
