CSC Reviews

Pros

Flexibility, independence, flexible hours, good team

Cons

routine project, lot of documentations

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

They hire very quickly and offer relocation benefits for many positions. The hiring process was very simple and not overwhelming nor discouraging. The contract that I am on is very stable and the team I work alongside is very devoted to being successful. Middle management is very competant and works hard to ensure employees have few unecessary distractions.

Cons

I only have one real problem but I don't think it is related to CSC in general. The contract that I am working for hired me for one role but has forced me to absorb many other responsibilities that mimic a project manager. In other words, I am a Network Systems Engineer/Project Manager, but my resume will never reflect that fact. I have voiced my concerns about this fact but nothing proactive has taken place since then to update our titles.

Advice to Senior Management

Coordinate with program directors to ensure employees are satisfied with their responsibilities. Update position titles to accurately reflect their contributions to the company.

Pros

salary and benefits are ok. Company has lots of talent.

Cons

reduced contracts and work opportunities- does not leverage talent. Information highly compartmentalized to protect bonuses and compensation.

Advice to Senior Management

rework communication between sections, and rethink methods and plans for bonus and awards - employees do not share information across organizational lines - to many employees worried about individual rewards vs. corporate goals.

Pros

Excellent employees, often with superior skill sets. Challenging assignments.

Cons

Poor at providing clear lines of promotion and providing time for training and growth. Stop reorganizing everything all the time. A new resume format does not an institutional change make.

Advice to Senior Management

Really pay attention to work - life balance. Upgrade some basics like time and expense reporting. Actually help build careers by focusing more on coaching and mentoring.

Pros

Enjoy working
Work and life is balanced
Flexible
A lot to learn
Work remotely
Cutting edge technology
Steady pace environment

Cons

Less growth
Less pay
Hard to move around
Contract renewal every 5 years
Appraisals reviews are not fair every year

Advice to Senior Management

Give the employees the opportunity to move around
Give the employees to move around to different accounts for more exposure

Pros

I have a great direct manager, but he was working with us before we became outsourced. The relationship manager between us and CSC is less than desirable.

Cons

Horrible pay and no room for advancement. Short of getting another job, there seems to be no hope for a better future.

Pros

Benefits are 'ok'. Once you have your proverbial foot in the door, it can be a steady job with somewhat decent stability.

Cons

It's hard to find a place to start but having been on 4 major CSC accounts I can give you my personal eperience over the last 10 years.

There are plenty of 'shifts' in middle and senior management which occur from time to time. CSC seems to have a philosophy that no one at the company (CSC) is qualified or 'good enough' to move up the ladder. When a position above you is open, it is EXTREMELY RARE that a CSC employee will be selected for the position, despite performance, qualifications, experience, etc. In 10 years, I've been fortunate to be one of the lucky ones moving up the ladder, but overall, the hiring practices are to employ from the outside while citing a need for a "fresh perspective".

Pay is HORRIBLE --- simply HORRIBLE. If you're hired from outside the company, you'll get decent pay in the beginning, however, you had better negotiate your top salary before you accept the position because you're not getting much more than your initial pay regardless of future performance. In fact, even if you transfer accounts or move unexpectedly into a higher ranking job with greater responsibility, you WON'T get much more than you already make. I have moved "up" 4 times in 6 years and currently hold a position at 3 levels above where I started. I've had less than a 3% increase although the duties have increased 4-5x. My performance ratings have been a the "Always Exceeds Expectations" level, yet the raises and pay have been missing. This has been routine and common practice across CSC on EVERY account. Your manager will make triple digits and probably receive bonuses, but you'll never get anywhere near that.

Another recent example (within the last month): I applied for a position on another account which holds an average US Salary of 95K regardless of which company you work for. In fact, the CSC salary ranges are exactly in line with that. After 3 interviews, an onsite interview (2000 mile round trip travel to meet the site personnel), and having been placed at the very top of the list for the position, I was offered an initial salary at 30K below that range. I know CSC is all about cheap labor (while promoting and paying top executives literally MILLIONS each year in salary and then more in 'extra' bonuses) but really? I have a proven track record of turning companies around and increasing customer satisfaction 2-3x while decrease costs, sometimes by as much as 40%, and this is what CSC offers? Really? It's an insult to every employee when senior manager makes less than the average salary of his employees.

If I had it to do over again, I would have avoided CSC at all costs.

Advice to Senior Management

Get real. Your employees are valuable assets and should be treated as such. There are those who have the ability to excel and who have done so while increasing your performance, profit margins and customer satisfaction. They've put their lives, families and careers into CSC while being treated VERY poorly (I can show you 9, yes NINE current managers who fall into the same boat and who make ONLY 40-50% of the going market salary. One of those managers was just given a 1.5% raise to compensate for the increased responsibility. That's laughable and serves only as a token of appeasement.

CSC, you need to learn to take care of your people and do it right. You might look into some of the 'other' outsourcing companies on the market. They're stealing some of your best employees and will eventually have your contracts. What a shame it would be to have former managers, technicians, and key employees working for another company, knowing your business practices and using them against you.

Wake up CSC -- you're headed for some labor "class actions" if things continue as they are.

Pros

Starting Salary
Military Time Off
Cool work location

Cons

Mega-Bureaucratic, They seriously take business process to get anything done to a whole new level. I would NEVER use them in a consulting capacity, as they don't know to efficiently manage an IT department. To them it is more about extracting more money out of the customer than actually providing them decent service.

They say they will pay for professional training, but they rarely do. I'm a Network Engineer wanting to attend CCNP coursework, and they won't fund it. Exactly what kind of professional development do they offer if they won't fund development that correlates directly to your position?

Like others mentioned, no real clear path for upward movement. It's almost like they don't want you to grow as a professional. I am sure it has everything to do with not wanting to pay you more.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually care about your employees as valuable assets. You get a cut of whatever our client is paying for my position, the least you could do is let me grow as a professional.

Pros

This has been a pretty stable due to particular project. Majority of the management is respectful and knowledgeable. Benefits are on par and about average with the corporate industry.

Cons

Very tedious on a government project. Little to no learning opportunities due to whatever reason (usually reason given by managers is funding).

Advice to Senior Management

Offer advancement or at least more learning and personal development activities. Coaching and mentoring is a joke as those roles are NOT fulfilled by those assigned as coaches and mentors.

Pros

Many opportunities for growth and supportive mangagement

Cons

Many layers of management and approval levels

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more with everyone