AT&T Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Secure, Household name, Great pay, intellectually stimulating

Cons

Rigorous Structure, Silos, Huge company where it can be difficult to stand out

Pros

At&t has a wide array of campuses and locations in which you can work, however, its not likely they'll allow you to move once you're employed.

Cons

Promotions are "pie in the sky." Unless you know someone in upper-management or have insider knowledge, you're stuck where you're at.

Advice to Senior Management

I have put over 10 years into AT&T and after the recent lay-off's I've been left for dead, basically, because I don't have a degree. Loads of experience doesn't matter

Pros

income to support family and nothing more

Cons

No real future there unless you know someone

Advice to Senior Management

All you folks who've been there 25 plus years, please retire

Pros

Your voice is heard. The culture is very familiar and open. There is a lot of collaboration and constant communication

Cons

There is some disorganization. At times the business seemed to be a bit stagnant

Pros

Working with some of the most challenging issues facing global IT organizations

Cons

Career limitation even with signifcant success

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your leaders

Pros

Benefits and Benefits and Benefits

Cons

High Stress and boiler room Sales, High turnover

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the people on the front line and set realistic goals.

Pros

Cutting edge cell phone technology, great place if you enjoy customer interaction, fantastic place to develop a wide range of skills, pretty good benefits relative to other companies I have seen.

Cons

Despite being one of few people with a 4 year degree, I was never given an opportunity to move in a direction other than up the retail career path even though I showed repeated interest, in three years I had 5 different managers and only one of them would be considered "good".

Advice to Senior Management

Take a deep breath and think about the kind of people you want running your stores, although it may be much cheaper to promote top sellers rather than people who have some knowledge about management, your best salespeople are rarely good managers (and they take a pay-cut which is a disincentive).

Pros

Stable company with great benefits. The leader in the land line side of the business with the best network in world. The workers take pride in their assignments.

Cons

Highly political and the good ole boy system is in effect at the middle management level. Good task workers did not necessarily make good managers and that created some problems for out of the box thinkers.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest and involve your people. Allow your people to be different and explore new ideas from your work force. Also, properly reward innovation.

Pros

Pay and benefits are better than most.

Cons

I worked in the Atlanta NOC for 5 years supporting multi-million dollar business and government customers (router and internet connection support). Management ran this group into the ground...no plan, no ideas and no leadership. We had no training or development, and received very poor support from the higher Tier support groups (which should have helped develop the group). With the phone constantly ringing due to not enough people, it was nearly impossible to learn "on the job." Management was focussed on numbers, how many calls or tickets did someone work. They did not look at if the problem got fixed or if the customer was satisfied (in many cases no). Management did not respect or reward good work. I had to endure working horrible shifts due to my low seniority and it being a 24/7 center. When I was on 2nd shift, the manager would try to force me to work a double shift by 'forgetting' to schedule a next/3rd shift. There was no opportunity for advancement because upper management would not release us (the immediate managers would lie and deny this). Management generally behaved nasty towards their people, and would make themselves look good by making the people under them look bad (office politics at its worst). All in all, a horrible job and experience. This is not how a Telecom leader should be run.

Advice to Senior Management

AT&T needs better management/leadership. Just because someone is good at the B.S. does not mean they will be a good manager. They need to listen and understand what their people are doing.A better evaluation process would help identify the ones that need to go.

Pros

Good Salary. Good Technologies. Lots of upper level management experience. Good perks of the company i.e. discounts for services, etc.

Cons

Transition from Bellsouth to at&t was rough and lost a lot of culture and consideration for the customer. Since my departure I have heard it has gotten better but can't vouch for that..

Advice to Senior Management

Invest internally to make the processes easier so that individuals can do their jobs properly. It shouldn't take more time internally to process and order than it does to sell!