General Mills Reviews

Former Employee – worked at General Mills

Pros – amazing access to leadership
project work has tremendous impact and support from finance function
peers are intelligent and fun to work with
Efforts to develop people and help them grow are great

Cons – Finance is still a support function that sets the ground rules for which the marketing department makes decisions and supply chain and logistics make decisions to save the company money and spend money responsibly.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to give access to leadership for interns. Show the impact interns and analyst make by following up after implementation.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at General Mills

Pros – * Very well respected company that's done well in economic turndown
* Looks stellar on your resume
* Immediate, broad responsbilities right from the start
* Uber-smart colleagues across all functions
* World-class headquarters
* Generous pay
* Work-life *flexibility* (not balance)
* Very involved in the community

Cons – * Work life balance is rare. Expect to work before work, at work, after work, and on weekends, just to keep up with the workload.
* "Up or out" environment. AMMs are commodities - if you come in with a large class - you could be out in a matter of months.
* While people from diverse backgrounds are welcome, diversity of style isn't. Expect to be a "yes man" to advance.
* "Great training" the company touts during recruiting is largely from on-the job learning & other people. In other words, 90% of it could be learned at any other top CPG company.
* Marketing Managers are incented to be great business leaders, *not* great people developers. As a result, many MMs with reputations for being horrible to work for are retained.
* Very slow advancement to promotion. Expect at least 4+ years to Marketing Manager at this point.

Advice to Senior Management – Be honest about what working here will be like when you're recruiting people. It's bad enough to have people relocate here under false pretenses, but to then begin tossing them aside in under a year (without giving them the chance to work with a variety of managers to truly see their abilities) is unforgiveable.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at General Mills

Pros – - bright motivated people who will surprise you with their industry knowledge
- challenging work that pushes you for data and analytics but more importantly, insights
- fun and friendly culture
- clearly values it's people and treats them well
- builds broad business background with financial leadership program

Cons – - opportunities for continued education are limited to a few schools and a competitive sponsorship program
- opportunities for international experiences limited to upper management levels and not analyst level
- can get stuck with less glamorous rotations but all do built general management experience

Advice to Senior Management – great job, keep up the good work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at General Mills

Pros – You will work with high quality individuals. As an intern, you will be given value-added work and expected to achieve real results from the start.

Cons – The on-boarding process can become very time intensive. While it is great to meet all the plant leadership one-on-one, it can quickly become distracting.

Advice to Senior Management – Maintain the focus on high quality employees. If you keep providing tailored career development plans, you will continue to retain talented folks.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at General Mills

Pros – Great pay, and excellent benefits. They truly take care of their employees.

Cons – Not all managers will take the time to teach and help you grow. Also, people move up and around in the company often. In one year, I had three different managers. That took some time to get adusted to especially as a new hire.

Advice to Senior Management – Make sure all managers are helping teach employees. Ask for employee feedback more often and take their concerns more seriously.

Current Employee – been working at General Mills

Pros – Great benefits package
Strong external recognition
Career Advancement
Mentoring Programs
Strong brands
Leader in the CPG Industry
Great Culture
Employee Networks

Cons – For those with children, there is a daycare provided on campus but they only have children up to a certain age. No older children at the daycare

Advice to Senior Management – General Mills is doing a great job and continues to be the leader in the industry despite tough economic challenges. Keep doing what you're doing.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at General Mills

Pros – Good all around benefits, good work life balance, very stable job. People are very understanding about taking time off and you start off with 3 weeks vacation and 2 weeks unpaid, which is great.

Cons – Too much bureaucracy, have to run your decisions by 100 people before you can get anything done. I work in a plant so it is discouraging sometimes to hear about all the perks that the corporate folks get.

Advice to Senior Management – Allow people to do their job and don't micro manage people. Hire more engineers and don't focus so much on leadership skills for everyone you hire out of college. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at General Mills

Pros – Very stable -- been around for a while and know how to do CPG. Work/Life balance is good if you set strong boundaries. Some pretty amazing opportunities -- you are allowed to take on as much as you desire. A few very strong leaders that really care about their people.

Cons – Very large, slow moving bureaucracy. If you're from MN and desire to stay at GMI forever, you are treated well and promotable. If you are an external, no value is given to your previous experience and you will be at the bottom of the pack for promotion, regardless of feedback you receive. They focus on hiring and promotion decisions based on minority status vs performance. This leaves the direct reports carrying the weight w/o the recognition or the pay. Very political and clique-y. I second the comment about The Stepford Wives -- very accurate. Diversity in every aspect except thought/style.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on performance, not diversity for the sake of diversity. Recognize individuals' work history regardless of whether it was at GMI. Stop creating the vicious cycle of assuming externals are going to abandon the company and treating them as second class employees so they leave.

Current Employee – been working at General Mills

Pros – The People, the opportunity for growth. You can control your own career path through your performance and get rewarded for achieving personal and professional objectives.

Cons – The amount of time spent dealing with e-mails and other non essential items. Many times we need to check work over and over to ensure everyone is on board with our actions.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to push forward with new technology and ways to do business more efficiently. Utilizing flexible work options will enable us to be a more productive work force.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at General Mills

Pros – -Summer is stacked with events to help with networking and understanding corporate culture
-Many professional development opportunities: educational resources and training
-Actual projects (affecting bottom-line) and opportunity to speak with key decision makers
-Amiability of senior execs to spend time with you to talk about careers and the company
-Emphasis on work-life balance, even as an intern

Cons – -Corporate hierarchy seems very structured
-Intro roles seem heavy on reporting analysis
-Not the most innovative company (need less process inefficiencies)

Advice to Senior Management – -Try to expose interns to corporate leaders who were on the fast-track
-More professional development events with key executives
-An additional performance appraisal (trimesters instead of bi-summer) to help manage expectations

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend