Schlumberger Reviews in Houston, TX Area

Pros

Significant career opportunities; international exposure;

Cons

Salary is not as competitive as it should be

Pros

Good place to work, decent benefits for a service company

Cons

If you get stuck in a slow segment, your career will take a hit.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop changing managers so many times, give people time to settle in their new roles.

Pros

Stable, communtity minded, professional work place

Cons

Only lip service is given to Excellance in Execution

Advice to Senior Management

Excellance in Execution is a great program but seldom followed.

Pros

They hire from within, and the career growth opportunities are very good. You also have a lot of opportunity to travel if you choose the international mobile route

Cons

Do not expect much of a social life for the first several years. Your life will revolve around Schlumberger.

Advice to Senior Management

While I see the term 'work/life' balance floated on the hub, I don't think it is taken very seriously, at least in the field. I think service quality would improve if the crew had more time to theirs families and to sleep.

Pros

* Opportunities for exploring positions in different functional areas (personnel, marketing, sales)
* Opportunities for rapid career growth
* Opportunities for international careers

Cons

* Schlumberger is a very large organization
* Recent merger and acquisitions mean that company culture is going through significant changes

Pros

The work environment is great!

Cons

It is difficult to move from paraprofessional to professional position.

Pros

Good place to work to start a career. They gave you an excellent training the first 4 years,

Cons

The career path for Senior employees is not always followed as it was planned. You can be frustrated sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers are more technical. They have to be trained about people management

Pros

The company has a great culture (or so I've heard) of promoting talent internally and providing their talent with opportunities for growth. They still have a more than decent benefits package, when you factor in the economic conditions and general market stability, as compared to other major corporations. The salary is decent and depending on your role, location and group, your work/life balance could go one way or another. They have a great training program and that's one thing that I really appreciate about the company.

Cons

Senior Managment, for me, is really terrible. I just landed in a bad situation where my boss is not ideal and my boss's boss, is too busy chasing his own agenda. Sometimes too many job rotations are not a good thing either and it's not necessary that you will always get an offer for a role that you were looking for. Impossible for employees to look for/post to job openings internally.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve on the screening of your candidates for leadership roles. Leadership is not just an attribute of a candidate's desire, contacts or aptitude. Noe everyone can be a leader and making a mistake in selecting a candidate at that level, can have a very negative ripple effect on the business.

Pros

Lot's of employee events, excellent health and retirement benefits

Cons

Salaries are slightly lower than competitors

Advice to Senior Management

Salary adjustment. Excellent managers

Pros

We have wonderful opportunities of completing software development courses from prominent external instructors. Learning seminars are frequently held with either internal or invited speakers. Employees help each other in the technical communities. Opportunities to move to other groups, or even change job categories.

Cons

Some segments have very tight budget restrictions (ex. traveling) under the current economy, and it causes occasional inconvenience on distributed projects across the countries. Fresh graduates must complete a 3-year fix step training (quite often lags way more than 3 years) before becoming eligible for applying a senior position.

Advice to Senior Management

Some managers think management is all about pushing people, and asking employees to write reports for him/her. Software development is a creative process with elevated uncertainty, and pushing hard towards the deadline does not lead to a good solution. Engage in the conversation to the developers ("go see" attitude), and be the catalyst in the good communication among talents so each of us continue learning and strive for the better solution and more efficient process with strengthened passion.