AREVA Reviews

Current Employee – been working at AREVA full-time

Pros – Benefit package
Flex scheduling
Casual atmosphere
Work life balance

Cons – Slightly lower pay than average
Advancement opportunities for non engineers

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AREVA full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – challenging, no day is the same, very innovative notions

Cons – beaurocratic, need to be allowed to operate regionally, one size does not fit all, it fits some.

Advice to Senior Management – get outside of your silos and understand the art and science of leadership

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AREVA full-time

Pros – Good work-life balance and plenty of growth opportunities

Cons – Compensation could be more competitive

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AREVA full-time for less than a year

Pros – I am working for a subsidiary of Areva named Areva Solar. As a result, I have a view on both Areva and Areva Solar.
Areva is a large multinational which takes care of its employees. Their policy is to keep their talented workforce and as such they avoid layoffs as much as possible. They also promote internal training and allow mobility inside the company, between the different branches and countries. For example, several employees from France were given the opportunity to work for the USA branches in order to bring in their skill-sets.
Areva is also very technology oriented and encourages people from different departments to submit their ideas for patent writing.
Areva Solar is currently hesitating between different technology solutions. It is in transition phase between the start-up (ex Ausra) phase and the full Areva integration. As a result, there are a lot of possibilities for people willing to take on new challenges.

Cons – Areva has the issues of most large corporations, namely excessive bureaucracy. They try to compound this by having a centralized help desk which is sometimes very efficient. However as certain organic decisions must sometimes be take in France, this can lead to frustrating delays. On the HR side, some decisions can seem unclear even though the firm prouds itself on its transparency.
As mentioned previously, Areva Solar is in a transition phase. The downside of this is that certain strategic decisions are not thought through which results in the company going back and forth between various strategies. This leads to confusion of the workforce and eventually to loss of talent.

Advice to Senior Management – Areva Solar should think its strategy through before jumping in with both feet. The market evolution over the next 10 years was only properly understood in the past few months. This needs to be properly mastered before taking important decisions.
Taking on important projects which are not viable and without a proper cost analysis should also not happen again. This leads the company to hire contractors below market price and stresses the business relationships. This stress falls on the Areva Solar employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AREVA full-time for more than a year

Pros – I didn't find any pros

Cons – Career Path and big salaries only for Engineers...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AREVA

Pros – AREVA balance sheet and global footprint

Cons – French politics which translates into corporate politics

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AREVA

Pros – Good work benefits, 401k, health much better than other places. Decent pay. Interesting and challenging work. Lots of responsibility given right at the beginning.

Cons – Tough difficult projects to work on. Too much red tape and paperwork all the time. Very stressfull, lots of impossible deadlines to meet. Very high expectations of employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Cut down on the meetings. Cut down on all processes. Things are way too difficult sometimes to get anything done.

Current Employee – been working at AREVA

Pros – No 1 Nuclear Supplier in the World

Cons – Not too much access to learn.

Advice to Senior Management – provide practical access to share expertise and resource

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AREVA

Pros – AREVA treats their employees like family. They take care of us and make us feel like we're wanted. While other companies are cutting raises and bonuses, AREVA provides that and other extras such as a $50 grocery gift card at Thanksgiving. It's the little things that count. New hires also get 3 weeks of vacation to begin with.

Cons – Can't go into a negative sick time balance, which really hurts when you get sick early in the year. The alternative is to take vacation.

Advice to Senior Management – AREVA is great! I don't have many complaints, but you guys seem to take notice and solve problems within the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AREVA

Pros – There are great amounts of growth in this industry. It is great to be in a field where I know going to work eveyr day I will continue to have a job. Job security is important especially in this economy where all of my friends are getting laid off in many fields in different industries. Areva is growing in every way. It is great to get your foot in the door and get ahead of the hiring rush.

They compensate you very fair. I earn more than my peers in other fields.

If you like travel, the job is a definite plus too.

Cons – I work very long hours for weeks on end. Many weeks are more than 60 hours. You need to be well disciplined to put in this much work and keep your personal life in order.

Working this much and travelling so much makes a marriage and family difficult. Many people divorce because of the stress and high workload. If you are family oriented it may be best to stay away from this line of work as you will probably burn out.

Benefits are so so in my opinion. I think they could be better. The pay is good, but benefits are very important too.

Advice to Senior Management – Reduce the workload per person

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend