First American Reviews

Pros

Good PTOs - 16 days in the first year
More holidays than most companies

Cons

Terrible senior management team
People either have worked there for 10+ years or have just started, no in betweens

Advice to Senior Management

Need to provide more advancement opportunities for employees

Pros

The finance department uses top of the line software which is very helpful in finding other jobs once your internship is completed.

Cons

Don't expect to have a lot of fun. You will be in a cubicle, everyday, 8 to 5.

Advice to Senior Management

Great management here at First American. They are very helpful and have reasonable expectations.

Pros

Fun, innovative, team environment, room for growth, learning new things

Cons

Not much feedback from management

Advice to Senior Management

Value your employees

Pros

-some very smart, hardworking people to learn from;
-3 weeks PTO for your first year (really good if you don't get sick often);
-decent health, dental, vision insurance that kick in after 30 calendar days of working;
-good place to start a career and buff up your resume as it's a fast-paced environment with many things to do;
-paycheck comes on time;

Cons

-low and uncompetitive salary in comparison with jobs of similar titles and experience;
-salary freeze for 3+ years with no raises?
-some really incompetent people who expect you to do their job for them;
-incompetent middle management (some of whom were brought in from the outside who know nothing about the areas they are managing);
-layoffs occurring at anytime due to cyclical nature of the real estate market and management always looking to cut expenses;
-work can get stale and tedious real quick with nothing new to learn (which leads to the next thing);
-career stalling and lack of opportunities to grow within the organization (very few supervisory or management openings).
-it depends on your manager but for me there was absolutely no discussion at all about career development or movement around the organization so that I could be exposed to different skills;
-very low morale. the only people i see who are excited and motivated to get to work are senior sales management (because they socialize with clients and staff all day) and brown-nosing "yes men"-type people;
-lack of effort to retain key talent. Lots of smart and talented people leave because the Company works them to the ground, pays them peanuts for the work, and then refuses to give them appropriate raises or promotions to keep them around.
-not a place where you are encouraged or even motivated to do your very best. in fact, if you figure out how the system works you can get by doing the absolute minimum and still get your paycheck every 2 weeks. That being said, if you fancy yourself as an overachiever look elsewhere as there's no such recognition for that type of worker here; unless you consider recognition as being someone to be given more work for the same pay;

Advice to Senior Management

-work harder to promote from within the organization. The people you have now who display talent could very well one day be the next managers and senior leaders of your company. You need to spend the time and money to train these people so that they are ready to take on management roles and more importantly not leave for better opportunities elsewhere;
-get rid of the incompetent people tying up the time and resources of your talent and give their salaries to the people actually contributing positively;
-it probably isn't such a great idea to tell your most valuable resources (i.e. your people) that you can't give any raises for the 3rd year in a row then turn around and accept bonus packages worth millions of dollars in cash and RSU's;

Pros

friendly staff, can be a good first job, low expectations, work - fun balance, good management team

Cons

peanuts for pay, hardly any chance to get a job out of the internship. no challenging work, more like a temporary worker job

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more time in assigning challenging work to interns rather that the usual data entry story.
Competitive pay relative to industry is a motivation for any student like me.

Pros

First American has vastly different cultures depending on which office you work in. The cultures often reflect the cities. FA is a great place to work if you like fast pace and lots of opportunities to many different things

Cons

At the time I was there, senior IT management was introspective and didn't consider the input of senior leaders, or staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen.

Pros

First American has great benefits, great 401k plan, and a supportive work environment. Within the accounting department, the workload was predictable and time off was supported as it fit with the monthly schedule.

Cons

I didn't see many of my peers being promoted from within. The company tended to hire outside talent to senior positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a better job at developing employees within the organization and promoting those individuals. If you are not able to promote from within, it means your training is not sufficient.

Pros

Some flexibility with work schedule.
The benefits are adequate considering the current economic climate.
I get to work on numerous projects that require a variety of skill sets and therefore makes my job more challenging and less tedious.
The people I work with are all without ego, are considerate, helpful, and highly knowledgeable in their areas of expertise - but all this says more about the team that my manager has assembled rather than the company itself.
My manager strives to make our work environment pleasant and very team oriented.

Cons

The company is frugal, very, very frugal. 99% of the software we use is open source. My team has performed miracles with its use of open source software thereby saving the company thousands of dollars if not millions. And yet the company has cut back on 401k contributions, contributions to health care, and implemented salary freezes. I understand that these alternatives are better than mass layoffs - we've had those too and it could have been worse without these alternative actions but they also took away a portion of our sick/vacation days even before the 2008 stock market downfall. And after numerous layoffs, there is still a constant stream of announcements about new hires at the executive level at the corporate headquarters. Overall communication from corporate to us widgets is also poor. New policies seem to be announced without regard for "special circumstances". For example, everyone must now turn off computers at the end of each work day. Fine, we can save the company some money on its electricity bill. But what about those that are on call and need to have their computers on? What about those that have made arrangements to work from home and need to have their computers on? What about those that only telecommute and need their computers? None of this was discussed in the announcement. Not even a "exceptions will be granted on a case by case basis." But what irked me the most was at the end of the announcement a statement was made that basically said "we are monitoring your compliance and you non-compliance will be noted." NICE. If it weren't for my manger, I would already be gone.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your employees. There are many of us that work hard for you. You can either create an environment that will make us want to work harder at making the company a success or you can create a big brother environment where we are only willing to do what we are told - no more no less. Recognize the managers that have implemented good policies with their department and raise them up as examples to the entire company. Realize that you get what you pay for - if you pay for sub-par workers then you will get sub-par quality.

Pros

It is pretty small so you get alot of face-time with upper management. Easy to find growth oppurtunties for the firm

Cons

The is not alot of oppurtunity for advancement within the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees more ... they are full of good ideas

Pros

Benefits are excellent. If you are in the right position, it is a stable career.

Cons

Low pay, no raises for over 3 years! GRRR. Many positions are subject to layoff due to market volatility. If you are not in one of those positions, it's a great place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Give your "most valuable resources" a PAY INCREASE!! We're dyin' over here.