Continental AG Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Continental AG

Pros – building/campus; on site fitness center; decent pay; global experience

Cons – lack of trust among local employees, managers and with German collegues; high disfunction in some groups; expectation to work during vacation and time off -- Europe employees not expected to; key development work moving to Germany; building only half full with no solid plan to grow business; there has been high turn over in the human resource group over the last few years...due to HR leader of operational leader(s)?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG

Pros – They offer reasonable health benefits.

Being a global company, you get the chance to work with teams from all over the world. Expatriate assignments used to be offered (at the moment halted due to economic conditions).

Among the companies in the US automotive industry, they're doing better than most.

Cons – Continental leadership got too acquisition-happy. They bit off more than they can chew. The leaders who made the big Siemens VDO acquisition are gone now and guess who is in charge?

Massive cultural mismatch, IT systems that don't talk to each other, and politics. Want to do everything the "German way", so they send a lot of German expats to become middle management in North America. These managers' assignments only last 1-2 years, so they don't make any real changes. Most decision making is centralized in Germany.

They're preoccupied with survival at the moment due to the conditions in the US auto industry. Little R&D in N. America, instead focusing on re-use and cost cutting. Losing their technical edge very quickly.

Being a matrix organization, each department has its own agenda and typically works against each other. Lots of bureaucracy and red tape. Middle management takes a lot of time to make decisions, and typically after decisions are made, someone else tries to steer the team in the opposite direction. A lot of time is spent in unproductive meetings.

Advice to Senior Management – Trying to control and design everything from Germany for worldwide customers is very costly and ineffective. Utilize the knowledge and workforce you acquired in the first place or risk losing the value of your acquisition. Make sure you align your workforce.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG

Pros – Good tire and break discount

Cons – Too many BAD managers from Siemens VDO

Advice to Senior Management – Wipe out S-VDO managers who brought Continental down to deep trouble

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG

Pros – Pay is "good" for the area. Good benefits package.

Cons – New hires will undoubtedly work nights and weekends for many years to come. Promotions are not made on merit. Some technicians make significantly more money even though their level of expertise may not warrant such an increase. Causes much discontent.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire some managers from other industries and stop promoting people with only tire plant experience. Pay for some corporate leadership training programs to improve the efficiency of those managers you currently have.
Streamline the organization and eliminate the dead weight. (Having to answer to 5 supervisors is not efficient and makes for a lot of confusion.)

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG

Pros – Benefits, benefits, benefits. Not much else to brag about with this company but the medical and dental benefits are good. Some benefits such as 401k company match used to be much better but some benefits have decreased in the last few years.

Cons – HR department and management are self absorbed and do not care for their employees. Hard work and accomplishment are not rewarded while favoritism is obvious. Also major differences in pay for doing the same job because of favoritism. Lower and mid-level employees are not appreciated at all while upper management and only a chosen few are given bonuses and perks.

Advice to Senior Management – No reason to give feedback to Senior Management. The same practices have always been in place here.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG full-time

Pros – 9-5 job. low stress. nice colleagues

Cons – no opportunity for growth.
management style is very old fashioned. your capabilities doesn't matter. Its how long you've been with the company that matters.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Continental AG

Pros – The engineers and lower management are great but the upper management in Engine Systems NAFTA are a bunch of buffoons and are in the process of losing most NAFTA business.

Cons – Base design is in Germany and France and they do not want to give it up.

Advice to Senior Management – Low Cost or Right Cost engineering as you call it now because you believe USA engineers make too much money is NOT the future if you want to keep customers in the USA.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend