MetLife reviews

Some managers, particularly at the VP level, are so concerned about pleasing those above them that they are tremendously disconnected from what is going on underneath them. They make snap judgment calls with limited information gathered from a few of their loyal foot soldiers. This leads to poor decision making and a highly politicized environment. New employees into the company have not been integrated For me personally I've never worked for a company so disorganized. The workloads were so inconsistent from employee to employee yet no one ever bothered to consider reorganizing this leaving some employees stressed and others twiddling their thumbs all day. Meetings were plentiful but little was accomplished. Communication was inconsistent and in some cases discouraged. Some people were in the loop and always knew what was going on while others would find out about key changes affecting them secondhand. In my entire time at Met there rarely any discussion of career path. When I brought up my concerns about the future the question was always deflected to focus on the short term. I had reach out to people outside my department for guidance and to find anyone other than some colleagues who actually seemed to give a damn about my personal growth and development. While not all at Met are probably as dissatisfied as I was, nothing I've said is an exaggeration of my experience. I left work most days feeling more disillusioned and confused than the previous day. At orientation they made Met seemed like this great dynamic company to work for. They say that "People matter" but it became apparent that only a select group of predetermined people matter. These people could blatantly act in ways that directly went against company core values (ex. curse out other employees in public) whereas everyone else was expected to be model citizens. If anyone is reading this and considering joining MetLife I would say don't join unless you're someone very adept at making political allies within the company. If you don't have those allies you'll likely get lost in the shuffle as I did.

...the Raleigh location is an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. Executives in New York are primarily concerned with cost savings through layoffs in the northeast and meeting hiring targets here in order to get tax breaks from North Carolina. There's a lot of talk about coming to Raleigh in order to change the culture and it's just that: talk. Or rather, PR, since it was conjured up by an external New York-based firm. The higher-ups seem to think that that building a new campus will somehow automatically make the culture great. Too bad those new buildings are going to be run by people who wouldn't know good culture if it bit them. No one's going to use the quiet zones or work outside when their manager is clocking how long they've been away from their desk and interrogates them about it once they return. Nearly all of the new senior executive team came from long careers in banking, which has a solid reputation for horrible culture. For the others, MetLife is the only company they've ever known. Most of the IT executives (VP and above) are staying in New York because no one has the backbone to make them relocate. How they think any of this translates into building the awesome techie environment they're selling here in Raleigh is beyond me. Speaking of technology, most of it is stuck in the '70s and '80s. If you love mainframe, Blackberry, and IE8, you'll be really happy here. Anything shiny and new is built by an external vendor, not by MetLife IT, which is pretty demoralizing for developers looking to be challenged. Innovation is centrally managed through a group in New York. I'll give you a second to let the irony fully sink in. There's an over-reliance on consultants and vendor management is a total train wreck. MetLife is completely beholden to big IT players, so you'll be told it's too risky when you suggest working with anyone remotely small(-ish) or less well-known. Processes are labyrinthine. If you can figure out how to do something without angering at least half a dozen people, you deserve a medal. Moving around is difficult; moving up is nearly impossible. Internals have to go through the same hiring process as externals, including behavioral interviewing. It can take well over six months to fill a position, even when a qualified internal candidate is in the pool. Ridiculous. Cronyism is rampant. Once you start to weave together everyone's past relationships, it will be glaringly apparent why certain people were hired. The backgrounds they care most about are consulting and graduating from Ivy League schools. If you just sold a multi-million dollar business or were a rockstar in another industry, it won't matter. You'll still be treated like you're stupid (and if you're lucky, someone from New York will be kind enough to tell you that to your face). Intimidation tactics abound. If someone higher up gets a whiff that you might be smarter than them, you'll be branded as insubordinate and threats of being fired will start. No one, especially the ivory tower in New York, wants you to question anything because that might alter the carefully crafted story being sold to the C-suite and Board of Directors. Politics, oh, the politics. There are competing cliques of old- and new-school executives. The few trying to force the culture change are way outnumbered. They also need to have a steel spine and borderline masochistic desire for punishment from on high. If you're lower on the totem pole, just keep your head down and try to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. It's essentially a war of attrition and the good ones will eventually get tired and move on to better jobs. If you've made it this far, you probably know what I'm going to say: don't come here unless you love the corporate life at its worst.