Apollo Group Reviews

Pros – Change is a good thing and it is nice to see a few chains get rattled every now and then and get the new ideas flowing.

Cons – Once the chains are back to normal everyone returns to previous patterns and comfort zones leading to another new and exciting change.

Advice to Senior Management – My advice is directed at the International campus. Learn to value and appreciate your employees. Apollo Group employs so many Arizonians so it is possible to run out of fresh blood when you have run off all the old. Not everyone is a slacker and I encourage an audit of my calls and my productivity to prove it.

Pros – Flexible hours, pay is excellent considering low time commitment.

Cons – Classes are sporadic - hard to plan finances.

Advice to Senior Management – Offer more full-time faculty opportunities to help adjuncts make teaching a sustainable career.

Pros – The work is neither hard nor easy and the hours were semi-flexible.
Free education with UOP

Cons – The pay isn't market value and a free education with UOP

Advice to Senior Management – Don't micromanage

Pros – Have some really bright individual contributors who are trying to do the right things to open access to education.

Cons – Strategy and leadership are ever changing which makes for a difficult environment when playing in an area of the economy that is undergoing such radical shifts. Accountability is an issue and management seems to be willing to make lots of bets but there doesn't appear to be a real drive for excellence. Hard to see this business returning to its glory years unless there are radical and immediate changes at the top and in strategy.

Advice to Senior Management – Choose a strategy, select leaders who are capable of executing on that strategy, and hold leaders accountable. Too many dreams and not enough reality. Figure out your value prop, resource it with the best and brightest, and cut all the rest.

Pros – Agile development, Continually challenging technology and frameworks being implemented, the people are generally great to work with.
This is overall a positive experience

Cons – Going through some right-sizing and product re-evaluation right now, making people Skittish.
It has it's issues (but every place has it's issues)

Advice to Senior Management – Stabilize the outlook for the company's future - but I believe that is in motion.

Pros – Used to be a GREAT company to work for. Good pay, acceptable benefits - GREAT co-workers.

Cons – Now it is but a shadow of its former self.

Advice to Senior Management – Open your eyes and look at who you have in leadership positions and how thy interact with others. When you see good people jumping ship for no obvious reasons, you should look at the leadership team to see what is driving them away.

Pros – Nothing, expect free education only for UOP/Wester. If you want to study elsewhere they wont appreciate. Also company itself doesnt give any value for the degree from UOP.

Cons – Everything.
Fresh grads are all product owners and business analysts. Engineers who are not good in coding/testing can become managers. And if you stayed for a while like 1+ yr and know little bit of the application you can be architect. Then its all bureaucracy/politics/networking(like eating/drinking together) which helps in getting promotions.
Overall horrible place but you can relax and enjoy your days if you learn the insights.

Advice to Senior Management – Should consider at least reading UOP MBA materials to know what leadership or management means.

Pros – None: They removed all pros for employees over the last two years. And I mean all!

Cons – Lack of leadership and business Strategy (Stock has falling from 74.03+ in 2009 to 18.19+ in 2013)
No 401k match unless you commit 15% and then it is only a fraction of a percentage value.
Management is made up of employees who are trying to protect their job; I actually have witnessed senior management informing employees that they will never succeed because another director does not like them.
Senior management will directly try to fire or remove employees they do not like (I have actual evidence from past emails)
Removed bonus; raises; performance gifts; employee recognition; and promotion platform
Degrees from the University of Phoenix.... Lol (A Joke)

Pros – They have a beautiful campus and buildings.

Cons – Your efforts to strive for achievement and success will be met with blocking of all efforts by others you need to interact with. The atmosphere there right now, with all the recent large scale layoffs, is one of self-preservation. Everyone seems to be protecting themselves and those they had close working relationships with for years with black balling anyone new that comes into their group and would cause change to their normal daily lives. I worked there three months in a contract to hire position. I left because I was receiving no cooperation to complete my job duties from others in the group. Common was for it to take three weeks for someone to forward me an email after repeatedly asking over that period of time.

If you have an advanced knowledge in IT and keep current with latest and best technologies and practices you will be a complete odd ball within the Accounting IT area of the company. You will also be seen as a serious thread by the others there because of that. They are stuck in processes of using Access databases and spreadsheets. Daily processing includes workers using manual (in-auditable) steps to complete their accounting processes and reports. That is a scary thing if you ask me.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't just say you are embracing change. Walk the walk. Take action and responsibility to enforce the cooperation of your reports to cooperate with what is needed to reach that business objective. To middle management, be professional and don't promote the boys club mentality.. Stop treating your workplace like it is a fraternity of pledges or members. Have some integrity.

Pros – It is a time pass company, meaning you come to office and leave office with or without any contribution no one really knows what you are doing.

Cons – Unlimited vendor spending but cost cutting for office supplies which might cost you negligible compared to vendor spending
New job titles gets created just because one of their friend is needed
Spin a new sub entity because current executive do not see any growth for him/her

Advice to Senior Management – Waste of my time to advice them :)