Pros
Deere is a proud and responsible organization with a rich history of profitable and successful products and customers who swear by the brand with their own livelihood. There is an abundance of pride from making tractors and servicing those who serve the land in the Midwest. If you perform well, you will have chances to do new things and take new roles in different functional areas to broaden your base of experience. Deere is an awesome place to start a career and get a feel for the overall industrial business environment. Pay and benefits are great for the locations where Deere is located, so your standard of living will be reasonably high. You will work with the best people available in the workforce from the area you are located, and you will be given the opportunity to develop yourself.
Cons
Deere is not a management development academy, so don't expect that type of culture or experience. Seriously stagnant at the high middle management layers - with resulting cronyism for the best promotion opportunities - that self-protects/perpetuates. Don't expect to fly high or get a big opportunity for high impact assignments or access to Senior managment unless you work for the right people at the right time or get hired through the Strategic Management Program. SMP is basically an insider club of MBAs from Tuck, Kellogg, etc. that are essentially preselected for the high visibility and impact positions before they even start with the company. SMP is sweet for those involved and bitter for those not. Deere has done well over a long period of time, so there there is cultural complacency that inhibits efforts to build a great organization. Management talks actively about building a great business, but the culture won't permit it. Great people in general are not being recruited or retained. There is little incentive to stay more than 5 years with the company unless your career ambition is to build combines, balers, tractors, etc. or you settle down in the community where you are working and decide to stay forever. There are few if any employers that compete for talent in the locations where Deere thrives, so external talent competition is not a factor.
