Alcoa Reviews in Pittsburgh, PA Area

Pros

Big Company great opportunities to learn

Cons

slow to change, works like a government

Advice to Senior Management

become more lean

Pros

Good collaboration, team environment within many business units

Cons

The latest round of senior management is in it for themselves. This is a dramatic change as the company has evolved through the years.

Pros

Alcoa offered me a ridiculous amount of money out of college to work at their Corporate Headquarters which was a beautiful location, very clean with lots of training opportunities.

Cons

Many of the managers are promoted and/or hired in with no competency whatsoever. Men rule the roost while women back-stab each other for the scraps. I saw many talented people get disheartened and leave while many incompetent managers have stayed and prospered. There is no system in place to get rid of the "dummies".

Advice to Senior Management

Go back to what made you great - valuing your people. This was once a great company but you have lost your way and lost a great deal of talented & dedicated people. Act now.

Pros

The safety of the employees is the number one priority. They communicate work schedules very well. They have a very good benefit package.They respect the work we do overall.

Cons

They recently took our company over (Traco) and they are making salaries for new (temp) employees more than the salaries for the experienced employees that run the products. We work hard building windows and we can't hold alcoa responsible for our previous employers mistakes with the salaries but they are creating a poor work environment by increasing wages to unexperienced employees while not increasing the current employees wages.

Advice to Senior Management

We as employees try hard to make our shipments but the current moral over the wages has become a real problem. Employees on the floor with years of experience need to be compensated fairly and recognized for their achievements and knowledge

Pros

People are friendly
Many global experiences available

Cons

Corporate offices are in Pittsburgh only
Plant locations in many smaller towns

Pros

Appreciated for what you bring to the table, given plenty of opportunities to present to leaders, easy access to leaders at all levels.

Cons

You need to be prepared to work very hard with fewer and fewer resources, most employees take their laptops home and work nights/weekends to try to keep afloat. Continuous lay offs leave remaining staff with low morale.

Advice to Senior Management

There is still a good name with Alcoa on your resume, but how about stepping back and looking at the company as a whole and seeing how staffing decisions have longer term effects?

Pros

The location of the office, right in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, was great. The city of Pittsburgh itself, underrated by most who have never been there, is terrific. There are lots of things to do and see and being right next to the city was a great benefit to working at Alcoa.

The benefits are pretty good outside of the vacation time. The good thing about a large company like Alcoa is you know you don't have to worry about having decent health care packages available.

In addition, there were many good people at Alcoa that I still remain in contact with. A number of managers I worked for were easy to get along with, helpful when asked for advice, and good at what they did.

Alcoa also had a number of programs set up to help young professionals advance in their careers. A CPA program allowed employees to take CPA classes and exams while being reimbursed for any cost. Additionally, management support helped those looking to get their CPA fulfill all the requriements Pennsylvania had outside of simply passing the tests, such as obtaining audit hours and a referral. Other classes, at local colleges, could be requested if necessary for the job.

Finally, working in the corporate offices for a Fortune 100 company was a great exposure into the inner workings of such a large company. I really got a feel for how the company functioned and what was fueling the overall corportate strategy more than other new hires might have in different jobs.

Cons

Let's start with the most important cons, the salary is not good. In fact, I would go as far as to say they are terrible compared to other employers. The difference between my salary from Alcoa to my current job, both of which were entry-level hires, are like night and day. The vacation time is also not great, though it is probably standard for the industry. I won't go into specfics, but they are not very competitive compared to other companies that hire often off the campus.

The work itself was fairly simple and easy. Which was not a good thing. Having to stay in an office for eight hours a day with little challenging work to do is as boring as it gets. This means you don't learn or pick up any new skills unless you participate in the above training programs, which makes you less attractive for future career opportunities. I literally felt as if I was wasting months of my life at times.

The headquarters is filled with managers, many of whom manage regions of the business. What this means for a fresh hire is that they can be reporting to anywhere from five to ten different people at once. So even though there are quite a few good managers, as mentioned above, at the company who are fun to work for, there are just as many who make the workday unbearable.

And finally there was the corporate environment. Where, because of the failing economy, everyone was afraid to say anything wrong in front of the wrong people. When a question was asked to the CEO about why the company's top fifty executives maintain an expensive New York office, private planes with a hanger, and other seemingly unnecessary assets at a quarterly conference call (note, this question was from an outside analyst) while the company planned to lay off thirteen-thousand employees, he snapped and said he wouldn't answer questions on the subject.

You got the feeling working there that you would be in trouble if you brought it up to the controllers or management. And who wants to work in an environment like that, where they are basically forced to sip the company Kool-Aid? And who is going to trust a CEO who refuses to answer simple questions while publicly facing lawsuits from the previous company he was CEO at (Siemens)?

In summation, the job sounded great in concept when presented by recruiters, and as an entry-level you may think, as I did, that it is OK to sacrifice a little in salary and benefits for a better learning opportunity. But based on my experience, I would not recommend following through on that thought process. Look elsewhere or stay unemployed for a while, it will be better for you in the long run then starting a career with this company in my opinion.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more transperant and less hostile when asked tough questions. People who are losing jobs don't like to hear answers such as "I am not going to answer that question" or "Please do not ask that again."

Pros

If you are looking for a old-fashioned, conservative work environment in a large company that runs like a well oiled machine Alcoa is a good place to start. There's lots of opportunity for lateral movement and physical movement around the globe. The benefits package is excellent.

Cons

The company is heavily made up of baby boomers. There's barely anyone under the age of 30. Thus, the work environment is a product of the baby boomer era. It's a rather conservative place that doesn't change quickly or easily. I wouldn't recommend it to college graduates unless they love heavy manufacturing.

Advice to Senior Management

The overall company is sound, but a lot of work environment changes are needed to address the hiring crisis. More clear job responsibilities and descriptions with immediate impact on the company are needed to lure grads. A more casual work environment would make the young feel more comfortable.

Pros

Good work/life balance and opportunity for growth and career advancement Alcoa encourages employees to rotate jobs every few years to continue to build a variety of different skill sets and understand all aspects of the business. Most people find a permanent job at Alcoa with good benefits and never leave, which is good if you are after job security and want a comfortable living. The corporate culture is fairly laid back, with consideration given for outside of work activities. But, there are deadlines that people are expected to meet depending on the department. As long as you focus on getting work done, there is no need for face time.

Cons

Alcoa is a large corporation. Therefore, there is a lot of bureaucratic yellow tape to get through in getting things done. It is also easy to get lost in the shuffle, and outstanding work can sometimes get overlooked. Career advancement within Alcoa will most likely occur through "paying dues" either by working in a remote location or at a variety of different jobs to gain a broad business background. I know many current employees that have had to take jobs in far flung manufacturing facilities to gt the background before returning for their ideal corporate position. The company has some evidence of meritocracy, however, there is a definite sense of seniority throughout the organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage employees through a merit based bonus and incentive program. Alcoa is very mechanical in the way things are done, give extra incentive to employees for thinking outside the box.

Pros

Learn about the commodities industry. This company is in the aluminum industry but you will learn how in general commodities work including oil, metals, foods and other commodities. You can also learn about the 'old school' way a company is ran. They try to do a good job, but still ran in an old fashion way.

Cons

Very heirarchial company, hard to move up based on skill rather on time put in. If you expect to move up the ladder based on your skills, don't expect it. You need to put your time in and they make it very hard to get hired externally as it is a highly desireable company.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize talented people based on performance not on seniority.