Nortel Networks Reviews

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – I worked with some great people while I was there. I was given immense flexibility to structure my own job the way I saw fit.

Cons – Company has gone bankrupt. So, you know, that's a problem.

About a year before I left, they removed every third lightbulb in the building to save money.

You can do better elsewhere. That goes for current employees as well as prospective employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Polish up your resume. I hear the healthcare industry is expanding--you might try looking for work there. The military is expanding as well, so try employers that supply them.

Good luck, y'all.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Nortel Networks

Pros – The pay is very competitive for the telcom field. The flexible work schedules are very difficult to beat in any field.

Cons – Sr. leadership team is completely incompetent as chapter eleven would indicate. It boggles ones mind how most of them are still employed.

Advice to Senior Management – Sell all divisions and terminate yourselves for the sake of the remaining employees and your customers. There is wonderful technical talent here that has been completely wasted.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – Interesting projects
Got to work with good and hard working people
Fair compensation and benefits although there were less and less over years

Cons – Very tight budget and got worse every year
Layoffs happened all the time
People very stressed - no job security
Morale extremely low

Advice to Senior Management – We all know what happened to the company which is now being sold off piece by piece. No core leadship team left now to take suggestions.

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – Work with some of the best professionals in the business (those that haven't left). Nice work environment, flexibility with hours, work itself is interesting.

Cons – No communication between management and staff on the overall success of projects. Many times seems like just working to put out fires, rather than following long-term strategic plans.

Advice to Senior Management – Improve communication between management/staff. Clear plan/map how Nortel is going to succeed.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – The technical competence of the architects is really good. The amount of intellectual property though declining has been a hallmark at nortel.

Cons – Legacy style management finds it very hard to compete in the non traditional telecom markets. With the traditional telecom market a dinasaur it was a matter of time before what happened has happened.

Advice to Senior Management – None .. hopefully yall have been all fired and replaced by competent management that actually has a strategy and not just pissin in the wind.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – Salaries at Nortel Networks were above average and the company was very friendly to telecommuters if your position made that possible. But for the last 10 years, those are the only 2 nice things anyone could say about Nortel.

Cons – Beginning with the .com crash, Engineers at Nortel went from being a cherished asset to being hourly supervised workers except without the hourly overtime pay. The level of work that the management demanded meant 10-12 hour days on the average and about 2 weekends a month. If engineers balked at that, it was ominously hinted at that they were "not team players" and were probably on the list for the next round of never ending layoffs.The best and brightest engineers left in droves and those that were left were micromanaged almost to death and made to feel like peons. Then they canceled the Pension plan , gave no raises for a full 8 years (except of course for the Senior Management), and provided progressively shabbier health/dental/vision plans. Then, when everyone thought it couldn't get worse, they declared bankruptcy and reneged on everyone's promised severance package and threw thousands of good engineers out into the worst depression since the 1930s.

Advice to Senior Management – There was no discernible leadership at Nortel so it would be pretty hard to think of advice to give them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – It was a flexible working environment, and allowed you to have a personal life and not be totally bogged down at work.

Cons – Senior management was always changing the road map of the company. And leaders seemed to be interested in self then Nortel.

Advice to Senior Management – Well, I do not think there is any body left to give advice to. So i guess i would say.. run for the hills!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – The benefits were very good
Good opportunity to learn technology (not anymore, I wouldn't think)
Excellent tuition reimbursement program.
Employees given bonuses despite horrendous business climate

Cons – Management was terrible
Merit isn't rewarded. Often the *worst* employees in the group were promoted, just to get rid of them.
Absolutely no training - new hires learn through "trial by fire"
Transformed into a nightmare of policies and procedures for everything, that didn't work and hampered actual productivity.

Advice to Senior Management – I'd say it is a moot point at this stage. Management did everything wrong, and milked every last dime out of the company they could before everything completely sank.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Nortel Networks

Pros – Good co-workers. it is a Very challenging environment with some thing new everyday. benefits are relativity competitive and pay is not bad.

Cons – Management implements rules and procedures that they only want you to follow when something goes wrong to CYA. Otherwise just get the job completed.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop inventing new processes and creating paper trails. Some are not bad but seemed to only be used to point fingers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Nortel Networks

Pros – Benefits are great! Pay is pretty good compared to other tech companies and the cafeteria on site was pretty good.

Cons – It's a dying company and hubris has destroyed a once great company. It should have never gone on a buying spree for dotcom companies that imploded

Advice to Senior Management – sell everything and restart! Chop off useful pieces of the company and try to rescue the ones that are worth something

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend