CGI Group Interview Questions & Reviews in United States

Negotiation Details

Salary Negotiation at CGI is EXTREMELY important. Annual raises do not tend to keep up with the market value of new hires, so if you fail to negotiate your starting salary towards the top of your salary band then the new hires in two years will out earn you. The salary surveys on glassdoor are very useful for most locations. If you are coming in as a new hire then look at the whole band, the lowest number is someone who didn’t negotiate and got low-balled, the highest will be people with a good amount of experience. The average will be mostly accurate. When talking to the recruiter, mention that you have offers from other companies (or your current salary is) a few thousand more than the average and that while the other companies (or current job) are great offers and the work is interesting you feel like CGI is the kind of place where you can really flourish, grow and make a career. Talk about how the fact that CGI considers all of its employees partners and is dedicated not only to the quality of the work, but the quality of life, makes you want to be part of the company (Read the company reviews). The recruiters know the bands which tend to be +/- 5k from what I've seen as the averages on Glassdoor, and they will most likely tell you the highest they have seen someone hired for this position, especially if you made a great impression by following my directions in the interview section. The project manager that you interview with will eventually make the final decision on your salary, so when they ask what you are looking for you can say that you had talked to the recruiter who mentioned X (the highest) salary. They will then say that it is a bit high, but in the range. If you followed my direction in the interview process, you will have already received several offers and picked the one you liked the best. When that project makes you an offer it will be low and it will come through the recruiter. Now comes the risk, you can either A.) Take the offer and be happy to have a job or B.) do what I did and tell them that while you don’t want to argue over something as trivial as pennies you would like them to see if they can make you a better offer. I make 10k more than a friend of mine who took the first offer and he had three more years experience. I also interviewed before the economy fell apart, so negotiate at your own risk. Be polite, humble and firm and you should be ok, but if you do not feel comfortable negotiating and the number does not differ much from the average for your geography then you might just want to take it. I also joined the company before they switched the vacation policy from 3 weeks to 2, so you can always ask for the 3 weeks or try to play around with the benefits. I hated the job I had before CGI enough that if they had called my bluff and rescinded the offer I would have begged for half of the original. Play at your own risk. If everything works out, maybe we’ll get staffed together – you can buy lunch.