Jacobs reviews

This is not a graduate programme. There is minimal/no investment in graduates. Everything is hinged on being billable and there seems to be no budget for external graduate training or events. Even the graduate event is held at the end of your GDP, and is held during a weekend, so you will have to use your time and hours which you can't claim back if you want to attend, all for the purpose of minimising unbillable hours. Even the GDP competency matrix which you have to complete and right reports on has to be done in your own time, because even though you joined a graduate development programme, any work you do towards completing, it will be unbillable, for which there is no code for you to book to on your time sheet, thus you are simply told that this must be done in your own time. Even the travel time to attend training events as part of your GDP cannot be claimed back, regardless of how far away from your home you had to travel to attend the mandatory training session. This company is very cheap and is not like any other graduate programmes that companies offer, you are simply equal to an intern. All training is 'on the job', where you have to pick stuff up from others in the team, which is not ideal as most people are usually very busy, so they have limited time to properly teach you or explain it to you. You just come into work and work. No graduate events, no external training, no investment into graduates at all, unlike the majority of graduate programmes out there. Please stay clear because you will be utterly disappointed when you realise how cheap this company can be, and how much they do not invest in their own people. This has to be one of the worst graduate programmes there is out there. No wonder they have such a poor retention rate of grads as well as consultants and seniors.

I worked in the Jacobs Denver office and was literally told by my manager (in writing) that time spent getting water, using the restroom and chatting with colleagues was not billable to overhead or to project budgets. My group was also discouraged from taking PTO over Christmas because it would impact our group billability. Our bi-weekly staff meetings were canceled for a two month period for this reason as well. With the recent CH2M aquisition, a number of people were leaving, and the atmosphere in the office was very negative. The list of CEOs that was announced after the aquisiton was 99% male, yet the company claims to care about diversity. The office is stale, poorly laid out and heavy with senior management. Management is disengaged and only cares about profit.