Bechtel Reviews

Pros

Job security, good place to develop your resume

Cons

Long hours, low pay, no internet, management must possess navy experience instead of technical ability

Advice to Senior Management

Get used to having high turn-over in the professional ranks when the economy improves.

Pros

Compensation is better than normal.
Vacation time is significant.

Cons

High potential for being Laid off unless you are willing to relocate after every project.
Working late nights and weekends can be mandatory.

Pros

- Opportunities all across the globe
- Managers genuinely interested in helping you succeed
- Team mentality
 - Industry leader

Cons

- Work schedule can be overwhelming at times
 - Large amount of procedures that you have to quickly familiarize yourself with
 - Different expectations between office managers and field managers

Pros

Big company, in general they try to keep their good people even in lean times. Work environment is very professional. Management highly capable.

Cons

Moving up to higher positions may depend on who you know. They try to make it fair, but there is still some favoritism to people with the "right connections"

Advice to Senior Management

Look into some sign unethical behavior, especially with promotions and assignments that are not posted to everybody (hand picked). This is also visible with children of some managers that obtain summer jobs just because they are the "son of someone".

Pros

It is a very good company with smart people. If offered a job at Bechtel you should take it. The company is in a large variety of businesses so there is a lot opportunities to try different things and go different places.

Cons

The atmosphere is terrible with no respect for work life balance. Too much focus on hours worked and not production.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out ways to help employees interact on the project floor. Get rid of the gray 5 foot tall cubicle walls. They are just depressing.

Pros

Bechtel is a very stable company. There are many opportunities to locate both in the United States and in foreign countries.

Cons

If I had to describe a downside for working for Bechtel it would be that traveling required for some positions.

Advice to Senior Management

The advice that I would suggest to the leadership at Bechtel would be to use more engineers in upper management.

Pros

This is a truely global company that embraces diversity within it's workforce and portfolio. It is privately owned and run by some very smart people, they make their plan every year. It is an organization that encourages people to be mobile and take on opportunities in new locations. If you are capable, flexible and willing to make personal sacrifices you will advance. I have had some great experiences at Bechtel that I wouldn't have had at other companies even in the same industry.

A cautionary note, if you say that you are willing to relocate on your annual appraisal or in conversation with your management team, you can bank on the fact that if you are competent and high functioning they are going to to ask you to take on an assignment away from your home base, this usually doesn't align well with your personal circumstances, not many places work like this, so if they ask you and you say no, they may never ask you again or at least for a very long time (Hint, all the fun and interesting work is in the field, regardless of what people may say).

Benefits and Pay are in line with other EPC contractors, they aren't as good as working for an operating company or other industries with higher margins.

Cons

Bechtel is an EPC (Engineering, Construction and Procurement) company, so they have thin margins and are quite conservative when it comes to spending money on systems and people, they also work in s a cyclical industry, so if you aren't someone who can relocate with the work, then you might be sweating bullets when it comes time to layoff the local workforce, so if you want to have a nice home life and work at Bechtel that may not be in the cards all the time.

Bechtel is a big company, so it can get quite impersonal, so you need to watch out for yourself. Career development is a buzz word but many employees are expected to fend for themselves. It can be tough if your functional manager doesn't know you personally or even worse knows you and doesn't like you as much as someone else in your department.

Bechtel management can short change employees who go to the field on assignment conditions, there is nothing worse than being on a camp site and having a neigboring contractor that has a better leave rotation

A cautionary note, if you say that you are willing to relocate on your annual appraisal or in conversation with your management team, you can bank on the fact that if you are competent and high functioning they are going to to ask you to take on an assignment away from your home base, this usually doesn't align well with your personal circumstances, not many places work like this, so if they ask you and you say no, they may never ask you again or at least for a very long time (Hint, all the fun and interesting work is in the field, regardless of what people may say).

Bechtel isn't the same company your dad worked for, a lot of the unique characters and principles that made Bechtel special aren't as pervasive as they used to be, some of this is due to attrition and EPC industry developments.

Advice to Senior Management

Bechtel is the envy of the EPC industry, it's only true asset are the people that work for you, you can do the math anyway you want, but at the end of the day you are only as good as the people you employ and retain. Treat your people with the respect and recognition they have earned and deserve and you will continue to be a success, forget or neglect them at your own peril.

Pros

Great salary
Exciting work locations
Smart and dedicated people - listen and learn a lot
Opportunity to speak your mind IF you're willing to fix the problem

Cons

Expectation of getting the work done within cost/schedule above all else can result in moral and personal dilemmas
Recent management actions don't seem to value longer-term employees
Bureaucratic and micromanaging some times
Failure to weed out non-performers (high-performers expected to take up the slack)
Severe inequality in salary and bonuses between management and staff

Advice to Senior Management

Go back to the company's roots - hard work results in more reward
Promote equality in the work environment (do away with these silly "reserved" parking spots except for maybe the 2-3 top managers) and for heavens sake stop adding layers of management to projects (project manager only, versus assistant project director, project director, etc.) it's confusing to the workforce on who's in charge.
Treat people with respect; discipline when needed but lay off when it's not.

Pros

Strong company, not high stress work environment

Cons

Big company but isolation within projects

Advice to Senior Management

Share talent/knowledge more efficiently between projects and BGU's

Pros

The selection of project locations is great, with plenty of challenges and adventure. Bechtel does a good job of assuring the security of their employees and families. Compensation for these assignments are better than most of Bechtel’s competitors. The projects are generally "mega" which equates to very exciting tasks and deliverables, all of which makes most Bechtel employees very proud of what they do.

Cons

Be watchful for your next assignment and career growth. The Global Business and Functional Managers are responsible for taking care of their people but personal experience demonstrates the managers’ place more emphasis on protecting their own turf and client relations as compared to promoting the best employees from within.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are protective of your subordinates, they will be protective of you. Also remember that your subordinates are on the job to support their families. An expectation of routine non-compensated over time is unreasonable because it does not support the employee’s family.