General Mills Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

-Great general management experience
-many 1st/2nd position brands to work on
-potential for international experience
-pays better than most other Minneapolis companies

Cons

-Work life balance not what it used to be
-Very large Marketing backlog - 4-5 years plus before you are promoted to MM and the first MM jobs often don't have direct reports, PNL management.
-Cliquey - you either fit the culture or you don't

Advice to Senior Management

We've had a great few years - keep at it and don't become complacent. Figure out more ways to go after scrappy marketing.

Pros

Great amount of responsibility early on; Surrounded by smart people from top MBA programs who can create a strong network (you will need it); Can make an impact as a leader and bolster your resume to get headhunted by several other CPGs/marketing firms in more geographically desireable locations; Managers don't track vacation - more of an honor system as long as you get the job done

Cons

Tough learning curve for new hires; Can be challenging to maintain work/life balance especially dependent on manager; you have input but no real say in your rotation structure/management/projects; very difficult to make real friends or date as a transplant to the area (locals can be colder than the winters!)

Advice to Senior Management

More clarity on compensation policies as well as performance management ratings; Continue focusing on improving managers abilities to lead and inspire employees rather than overwork and intimidate them; Somehow figure out how to improve time to promotion (has moved from 3 now to 5+ years from hire date in less than a decade due to backlog of managers)

Pros

Whenever someone asks me why I love best about General Mills, it's always a quick answer: the people! The organization is filled with driven professionals who are simultaneously highly intelligent and personable. The culture is incredibly collaborative - folks help each other out because they genuinely want to - not because they feel it is an obligation. Rotational programs in all functions result in continued personal development.

Cons

It's a huge corporation. As a result, you'll definitely need to be comfortable navigating through all that entails - being proactive about your networking is a must if you want to advance in the organization.

Advice to Senior Management

The organization needs to get more comfortable challenging the conventional marketing model. Management touts experimentation but at the end of the day those initiatives tend to get cut to increase our TV budgets. The model is changing, and management needs to hold brands accountable when it comes to testing and learning.

Pros

Very smart dedicated colleagues
Great experience and skill building
Flexibility of schedule
Good benefits and on site amenities on campus

Cons

Slow rate of promotion
Diversity of style not appreciated
Work-life is not balanced
Promotion process is opaque
Low morale growing

Advice to Senior Management

The company is doing great but you are burning out your employees. Your employees give 110%+ but tension is growing.

Pros

Fantastic benefits, decent pay, supportive and encouraging atmosphere, lots of energy and passion, open to employee feedback, great results

Cons

Promotions are based 90% on tenure, and very little on merit and ability (at least initially). Career path is very set in stone (must check certain boxes before being able to move to the next level). Incentive/Bonus doesn't fluxuate much on performance - difference between a high rating and low rating ~$800, after taxes, more like $400.

Advice to Senior Management

Need a more merit/performance-based system to incent better work and retention of high-performance employees.

Pros

Lots of opportunity for getting a breadth of research experience by rotating through a number of positions - syndicated, trends, primary/divisional, shopper insights, international, social media. Because GMI still has an internal primary research supplier and large syndicated team you can get nuts and bolts research experience being on the 'client' side of research.

Great benefits and they've started to embrace flexible work arrangements to some level. Lot's of smart people to work with. .

Making an effort to embrace multicultural trends.

Compared to other area which General Mills hires MBA's for, Consumer Insights is more stable career wise as the track is not up and out like marketing is.

Does a great job stay on the cutting edge of research approaches. Currently focusing on training CI organization with 'future skills' needed to develop great consumer insights.and less on the tactical research abilities.

Cons

The glass ceiling exists at General Mills for everyone but they'll let you stay and look out the window. If you join after grad school expect a couple promotions and then you'll hit the wall after becoming a manager. It's rare to break into the Sr. Manager or Director ranks especially if you don't fit the preferred style and desire to be divisional focused. Wouldn't be so bad but after a while at the same level your salary increases decline even if you get great annual performance reviews.

Not a great place to be an expert in a research area (e.g. new products, research method) since they don't have a technical or specialization track to reward expertise. Rewards/promotions are based more on how you manuver the political landscape. Expect to end up behind your MBA peers promotion wise since promotions are slow to happen and rarely accellerated. You may find yourself a CI manager but not have any direct reports so you'll have to do double duty exectuing and work overtime to make room for strategic thinking time.

You have little direct control over how your career unfolds as the job rotation system is opaque and dependent on how powerful your current manager is in the group determining moves and how much effort they make to understand your talents and desires. They don't balance their talent pool well. They focus only on hiring graduate level employees so an experienced resarcher ends up spending too much time on tactical aspect of research.

Due to strong risk aversion the marketing teams want to measure everything before making decisions. This puts big pressure on CI to often spend too much time tactically rather than strategically setting the stage.

Big varience in the quality of upper managers/directors - some are focused on helping you with development and give clear guidance. Unfortunately though some are passive agressive /opaque and lack the ability to coach and provide development opportunities for their employees.

Flexbile work arrangements/part time can work sometimes with managers who are skilled at ensuring workloads are appropriate for the time. The flex schedule will slow your career progression, not that there is much room anyway, and unless you are vigilant you may end up working more time than you get paid for.

Advice to Senior Management

Ensure the CI leadership team is also embracing the new skills and developing these skills. Find ways to provide more rewards and upward mobility for your long time employees. Balance your talent pool better and hire strong undergrad CI folks if you continue to have more tactical jobs and little upward mobilitiy. Don't just focus on multicultaral differences - learn to appreciate style differences too!

Pros

Industry stability and recession resistant industry makes a career wtih General Mills appealing. The company offers many ways to get involved and they people are very fun to work with

Cons

Many of the office locations are not in the best geographic locations.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more risks and become first movers instead of playing it safe all the time. Continue to encourage employees to develop through training and unique job opportunities.

Pros

- Benefits package
- Nice facilities (HQ)
- Summer hours

Cons

- passive aggressive culture
- work/life balance
- promotion to MM is too long and uncertain
- no candid conversations
- work is largly adminstrative and "entry level" for the talent GMI hires
- you will quickly find yourself behind your business school peers at other companies (responsibility and promotion)
- complacency with status quo

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to embrace construtive/direct feedback

Pros

- outstanding workplace wellness programs
- you get to work with talented, smart people who care about their jobs and also care about relationships
- career-long attention to development and growth
- senior leaders have integrity and are grounded, authentic people

Cons

- hectic pace with high expectations
- not all areas of the company have the same opportunities for rotating to try new jobs and experiences

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to invest in the great people that you have and don't underestimate the importance of staying in touch with the insights and ideas of entry and mid-level employees

Pros

Great co workers, leadership, enviroment, opportunities, and culture. If I owned a company, I would try to hire most of my peers.

Cons

A minor complaint is that face to face and collaborative environment can make getting things done cumbersome at times, but it also helps you to get some good feeback.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep thinking long term. This oasis of a company is only sustainable, if you think long term and often beyond your tenure as opposed to short term.