Good Company Overall, But There Are Better Places for Engineers
Pros
Good company with great amenities. HQ is an impressive place with a coffee shop, salon, company store, and many other unique services. The people that you work with are very smart and are there to help support you in terms of learning. Formal training programs are truly world class (how the company works, how to get things done, influencing skills, etc.). Awesome technical training for non-food science or food engineering professionals (i.e. chemical engineers, etc.). On-boarding and actual "on the job training" has improved over the years. In general, developing food products is a very fun and rewarding job (more so than working in a refinery or a chemical plant!). Most importantly, the company's dedication to ethical behavior, community outreach, and diversity is impressive and are the top reasons I'm proud to work for this company!
Cons
Even though the company gets A++ scores in the areas of diversity, community involvement, and ethics, unfortunately there are some major issues that make me question my long term career here. Upward mobility: There are some functions in the company that seriously lag behind others in terms of promotion. If you work in R&D, expect that you will be left in the dust when you compare yourself to your colleagues that work in Finance, HR, Sourcing, etc. Even functions that share some of the same competencies and educational requirements like Supply Chain (i.e. B.S. in Engineering) have faster career progression. To put this in perspective, the average time to promotion to manager level is around 8-9 years for many functions (HR, Supply Chain, Sourcing). In R&D, you are a trailblazer if you make it to manager in 10-11 years, with most taking sometime between 12-15 years. The good news is that R&D has exceptionally good work/life balance with relatively low stress. However, if you are a "driver' and work/life balance isn't important to you, delivering outstanding results above and beyond your peer set generally won't get you promoted any sooner like it would in Supply Chain, Finance, or Marketing. Compensation: Starting salary for a R&D chemical engineering major right out of undergrad is good but is considerably less than what you could make in the oil or pharmaceutical industry (which is to be expected). The only complaint I have is that after you are hired, your salary does not keep up with inflation. In other words, new entry level engineers' starting salaries will be dangerously close to the salaries of those with 10 years of experience. I guess that's the price you pay for a fun and relatively stable job (everyone has to eat, right?). Finally, you will find that as a new hire your starting salary is competitive within the context of your functional peers (Sourcing, Finance, Logistics, Sales, etc)., but because of the limited mobility you will find that these people will pass you up very quickly in terms of pay. Diversity: It's hard to complain about diversity at General Mills because they get so many things right. The company's commitment to all minorities through it's support of affinity groups like the Black Champions Network, Hispanic Network, and Asian Network is amazing and very inspiring. Also, the number of minorities (namely African-Americans) in executive and senior leadership positions within the company is outstanding. However, those of us who work in functions like R&D and IS, have no line of sight to what it takes to get there. The majority of of the AA Director & VP representation happens in the Marketing & Supply Chain functions. It's hard to envision my long term career at a company that barely has representation at the manager level in the group that I work (or a pipeline to get there for the talented employees that they have!). Overall, the company recruits highly motivated, talented, technical leaders for the R&D organization but unfortunately suppresses them with a lack of career mobility and incentives.
