Northern Virginia Community College Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – I was able to take time off when needed for classes and exams with little notice

Cons – H.R. is a nightmare, and IT restrictions can seem redundant.

Advice to Senior Management – Better H.R.

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College full-time for more than a year

Pros – Benefits are SOOOOOO great! The College closes from December 19 and opens up on Jan 2, so you get a all that time off paid and it doesn't count against your regular vacation days. Regular vacation days = 4 weeks. You also get 3 personal days and 3 weeks sick leave. In addition you get a lot of holidays throughout the year. Also, you can take classes for free if there is an available seat. Pay is not bad, I would say its above average but not top of the income food chain. Supposedly a proposal was submitted that is going to give us better pay raises due to the high cost of living in Northern VA. The people are REALLY nice. This is a good paying, VERY STABLE job with INSANE benefits.

Cons – Wish if I made more money.

Advice to Senior Management – Northern Virginia Community College employees have a waaaaaaay higher cost of living than other parts of Virginia. Push to get us better cost of living raises.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Can get away with doing very little. But some departments are flooded with work. Its ok

Cons – Upper management not in touch with employees or students. Needs leadership change

Advice to Senior Management – its useless

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – If you are full-time, access to taking courses that are free

Cons – Many of their processes are mired in useless bureaucratic paperwork, so that progress is severely slowed or halted.

Advice to Senior Management – The college should mandate and support the professional development of all employees (part-time) including credit, as well as non-credit course. In general the Human resources department needs to become more receptive, Also if the Workforce Development Department is to be competitive, then business all related business practices need to be realigned so that they can compete quickly and unencumbered.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – Everyone teaches you... you learn from every angle

Cons – Some positions are very rigid, and there is very little room for creativity.

Advice to Senior Management – Sometimes, there are things that work well, but can work better.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – Working with students is inherently rewarding. The benefits are good.

Cons – This organization is a huge bureaucracy which leads to lots of frustration. Each department has a singular focus without much regard to how their work impacts other departments. Plan on lots of headaches with everything from getting a parking pass to getting paid to getting into your classroom. There is little accountability so the employees as a group are a mixed bag. I agree with a previous poster that the school has gone to such extremes trying to promote minorities that whites are at somewhat of a disadvantage when competing for promotions. The school is working on its PR and you will receive many emails about how this is one of the best community colleges. However, reviews of empirical measures (graduation rate, salaries) would not lead one to a similar conclusion. The school is despirate for adjunct faculty and they will let anyone with a heartbeat teach as an adjunct. Morale is poor due to newer employees earning higher salaries than people who have worked for the college for 10-20+ years.

Advice to Senior Management – I would reccomend exploring ways to increase the accountability of employees. I would also reccomend addressing the significant salary regression if you want to improve morale.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – Great benefits (for faculty), good work/life balance, working with students is rewarding

Cons – Morale is very poor, this is the type of place where you do not need to do work if you do not want to, it is basically impossible to get fired. It is frustrating to see others earning the same pay doing little. Conversely there is not any reward for working hard, when there are raises they go to everyone equally or go to which ever job groups are most underpaid, they do not have anything to do with individual performance. Raises are so infrequent that new employees are often paid more than people who have been working at NOVA for 10 or 20 years which further impacts morale. Did I mention salarys are very low for northern VA. HS teachers are much better paid than teaching faculty here. Montgomery College also pays much better an average of about 10k more per year for teaching faculty. Before working here I would suggest going to one of the campuses and talking to a few employees.

Advice to Senior Management – More competitive salaries, consistent raises, merit based rewards

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – NVCC offers good benefits. Healt insurance is either COVA Care or Kaiser Permanente. You can have the opportunity to ask for tuition assistance.

Cons – I couldn't know how it is in all NVCC, but in the area where I worked, there was a poor team work.

Advice to Senior Management – Nepotism is excessive. Position descriptions should be analyzed. Duties should be re-assinged to employees. Promote employees who really deserves it.

Current Employee – been working at Northern Virginia Community College

Pros – It will hire you when no one else will. In other words, they don't care if you're good or not, they just want a warm body. They have hired friends of friends even if those friends are not qualified for the jobs and they have promoted those people to high positions, without them paying their dues. So if you are stupid but breathing, apply. They'll hire you. They don't even check references, so you can lie on your aplication. And if you are black, then you are definitely going to be hired, since they seem to want to hire people of color more than anyone else. very unfair.

Cons – Absolutely awful management at the top. The president is totally out of touch with the students and their needs. He doesn't even solicit their input on graduation speakers or important things like that. The benefits are OK but morale is lower than a mole's hole. If you want to be depressed every day, get a job at NOVA (or NVCC) or whatever they choose to call it these days. I t hink it's NOVA. You also have to fight to get a parking spot. They need more parking. And the human resources people are out of touch with today's laws and regulations. YUCK.

Advice to Senior Management – Get other jobs so the college can hire competent people who are caring and compassionate. Find teachers who are more qualified to teach classes instead of hiring your friends and family.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Northern Virginia Community College part-time

Pros – Time flexibility
Good salary
Work- study-life balance

Cons – Don't have a fix room or resources for tutor

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend