HP Barcelona: The perfect place for low-average professionals who are family / friend of...
Pros
- If you don't want to work too much, it's perfect as once's your in no one will fire you. As they say "It doesn't look good to fire" - Amazing benefits and facilities - It's a big company with nearly unlimited resources - You can live good life - If you're in Marketing (and not a contractor) you'll be good (technical positions are low valued)
Cons
- When one of my colleagues got an offer from another company and talked with his manager at HP he literally told him "HP is not a place for XX people like you". - HP way. It looks amazing from the outside but when you dig in a little bit you see the true meaning of those words: if you need to destroy someone's career or reputation or become friends with... in order to get promoted, then do it. - Socialization matters more than good job. - If a colleague is not working and delays a project, you'd better not ask your manager to encourage him to work better as you will get bad reputation for it and probably won't get your bonus. - If a manager is not doing a good job and all this team leaves the team (it has been a real situation), he is seen as a hero and gets promoted. - Technical people that don't do their job, get promoted to managers. - Most manager don't know how to manage people. - Really tight deadlines for project development so they prioritize time over quality. - If there are two candidates applying for the same position and one is family of friend of, even if the other candidate is the perfect person for the position it will not be hired. - There are entire families working on the same departments. - Too many managers: there are more managers than technical staff and even what they call 'people managers' without 'people' - Too many people that leave their work to 'their' contractors, do nothing and get awarded for it. - Too many managers and 'colleagues' unscrupulous who don't mind step over you to be promoted. - After asking for the action the company does to keep good professionals, I was told there was nothing of the sort. - After someone from HP international went to the offices in late 2017, engineers' salary was increased by 30% as is was way under salary range.