Pros
FDM is a fascinating company, in both a good sense and a bad, but before I get into that let me tell you my story with them. I studied Commerce at University College Dublin. I had plans to join one of the the big 4 as a Business Analyst, or maybe even one of the big 3 strategy firms if I was lucky, before I moved to London. 2 days after my arrival I got a random call from FDM, still no idea how they got my CV, and I had an interview. I was going to turn it down for all the reasons you would normally turn FDM down for, but having completed the interviews they offered me paid training (a special Irish thing) as a Software engineer, something I wanted to do but was unqualified for. I agreed, went to the Glasgow office, stayed in Glasgow for 5 months and trained as a Software engineer, moved to London and started working full-time in BNP Paribas for 2 years and 3 months, came back to the pond loaded with this priceless experience and left FDM with a job in the third largest global hedge fund at nearly a 6 figure salary and a girlfriend. ---Pros--- - Becoming a software engineer is highly lucrative. To do so with no qualifications is amazing, FDM is the only place I know where you can do that. For free as well! Forget that nonsense of 'you're paying 20K for training', that's just pretext to keep you for 2 years and to sell the idea to clients that you're trained. - Its good banter, the pond, which is the training area, is basically a room stuffed with people in their 20s with not a lot to do. I'll leave it to your imagination what that entails. - Not only do you become a software engineer for free, you start your career in companies where some software engineers spend their whole careers trying to reach. I was flooded with job offers after having done 2 years in BNP Paribas. I couldn't have been in that position without FDM.
Cons
Having given them all that praise, I can say confidently that FDM are a joke. Let's do the rundown on flaws: - Unpaid training, unless you're Irish or ex-forces. The training is absolutely awful, it is 100% a pretext for that dodgy contract. Its fun! Don't get me wrong, but its simply not worth 20k! You'd learn more watching YouTube for 6 months. One of the classes was the funniest, literally on how to tie ties and shake hands. Not even joking, come get your 20K handshake! FDM brings networking to the table, nothing else. - You have practically no control over your first client, which can make a MASSIVE difference to the course of your life. A lot of the industries are 'No experience, no entry', if you want to get into investment banking and your first client is Virgin Media, good luck to you! This also applies to location, I was sent from Glasgow to London. Its not just a detail on the contract. Sometimes the Salespeople even have the temerity to put you forward for roles that have nothing to do with your training! I've heard horror stories of people interviewing for dev roles and end up being application support on site, not writing a single line of code! And until your 2 years are up, its quite hard to turn down interviews, getting strong armed into roles you don't want is not unheard of in FDM. Its a lottery, a lottery I won big time, but its still a lottery. - After entry level positions, ie after your two years, there's practically no chance of you getting placed with a client again. The salesteam avoid you like the plague, as it is likely you will leave after a few months and their commission is based on how many months you are on site. For me, this was perfect, as I could sit around writing external CVs all day, read or study French, chat to people and play chess. Its a paid holiday really. But forget about long term career development. - For a self-proclaimed IT consultancy, its really not a tech savvy place. The computers are 'pre the dot com bubble,' 'pre Alan Turing' maybe, you can't do any serious development in that office, as what the hardware limits, the IT Software security policy strangles. - Speaking of IT policy, one of the things that annoyed me the most was that all your passwords for all the different systems in FDM, including email, get reset every 6 weeks, which sounds great from a security perspective but it means that when you’re on site and want to use anything you’re always locked out and have to spend a week emailing IT Support trying to get back in. Its unbelievably painful. - Ah the salary. For those of you weak at heart, look away now. FDM's business model is genius really, they get desperate grads and lease them out to roles they're totally unqualified for, charge them 20K if they try leave and charge the client 3-6 times what they would pay for a normal grad. Its vaguely impressive. I'm not joking though, you get a third or a quarter of what the client is actually paying. FDM will never tell you this but you'll find out later. The overtime is tear inducing, they literally pay you the exact same rate as your normal hourly rate, and they take home your overtime bonus that the client pays. This is how they can afford to have consultants sitting around on bench for months on end, its pocket change to how much they make when they’re on site. The third year salary is also far below average, I doubled my salary when I left. - There's quite a strong chance you won't even be working! I was lucky and I got a continuous 2 year contract. Some people are back on the bench every 3 months and end up there for ages doing nothing, getting paid half salary. - FDM don’t care about their employees so long as FDM get paid. One story I heard was that a girl’s manager on site was overworking and bullying her. For months she begged FDM to take her back but they kept putting it off and delaying it, ‘see what the next month is like’. It continued until the girl eventually got clinical depression and had to leave the client. My advice to you is ONLY join FDM if you want to become a developer for a blue chip, having come from a non IT background. When in, assert your right to manage your own destiny with the salesteam, making sure the role is something you actually want to do.