United States Steel Reviews

Former Employee – worked at United States Steel

Pros – They have good benefits and good starting salary. They wine and dine you in the beginning with a limo ride.

Cons – Hard to move up in the company. You work 60 hour weeks at times. You are always fearful of losing your job.

Advice to Senior Management – Ruling with fear does not increase productivity. Instead you should actually use information from the management training classes on the production floor.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at United States Steel

Pros – Salary was good and the benefits were fantastic.

Cons – Most of the bosses were apart of the bad years so a lot of them are quite bitter.Nepotism is extremely high and they will hire based on it. Promotions are a joke and their hiring and promotion practices make me question this company's ethics.

There is no internal hiring system so its based completely on who they like. Company is extremely biased and it they will overload you with work sort of recognition. Some managers talk to you as if you are not entitled to basic human rights. Its absolutely ridiculous. There are good people at the company..but very few of them actually have any sort of control.

Advice to Senior Management – The 70's are over. We are in a recession right now, but as soon as things get better all of the real talent will leave for companies that treat people with respect. How about you create an internal hiring system and base performance reviews on issues relevant to the job and not how much your manager likes you.

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – The best reasons are benefits package and some great folks amongst the long-timers.

Cons – Downsides include chilly corporate culture, very hierarchical, management in opposition to own "Gary Principles," tendency to outsource expertise, bureacratic overburden, heavy reliance on paperwork, poor communication and vertical transparency resulting in redundancy and vague leadership.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat subbordinates with more empathy. Lead with greater transparency to foster trust. Develop internal expertise rather than always outsourcing contractors.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at United States Steel

Pros – Money, money, and more money!!! All the overtime one could want, and then some. Lots of opportunities to do pretty much any job you want from working labor to operating heavy machinery. On top of that the hourly pay is good and quarterly bonuses are given out to all hourly employees. The pool of hourly employees is great. Lots of good and hardworking folks are employed there. Almost all of them will do anything to help you out and I think this provides a great atmosphere to work in. Some of the friendliest people I have ever met have been from there.

Cons – Management treats employees in a very non-friendly manner. Take your safety glasses off to wipe the sweat off them and they will send you home. They're that picky. Also, they do not like you to take breaks. Working in blistering heat and wearing multiple layers of heavy clothes can be hard on your body and sometimes you need to cool off. This fact is sometimes lost on management as they seem to think you are a robot. The word safety is thrown around constantly but is often just that, a word. Not all managers are like this but that seems to be the approach that USS trains their management employees to use with the hourly employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees with respect and try to work with them, rather than against them.

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – Outstanding benefits package; it's gotten a bit worse over the last few years (and they cut the 401(k) match in January), but other than that you can't beat it.
There is also a reasonable ability to advance in the company. If you are willing to work like a lunatic and move every two years, you're golden.
There is also a strong sense of history, working for Andy Carnegie's own company. 108 years brings a lot with it, both good and bad.

Cons – There is little tolerance for risk. This leads to people being more concerned with not screwing up (or worse, more focused on blaming others) then they are with actually trying to get something done. The goal is not to hit a home run -- it is to avoid striking out.
Some executives (with the notable exception of the CEO) are quite fond of screaming and swearing, so you'd better have a thick skin if you interact with them.
Benefits are (were) great, but salaries are middling to poor. Also, it is tough to get more money out of them, even if you switch to a new job with more responsibility. If you fight it out you may get something, but they will make you fight for it.
There is little focus on technology; they use what they always have, and are very resistant to anything new. (I'm speaking of process technology such as EAFs and thin-slab casters, not computer and IT.)

Advice to Senior Management – Take more chances, accept for risk. Sometimes you need to go for it.

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – The money is pretty good and the benefits are probably above average. Three weeks of vacation after 1 year.

Cons – Terrible management philosophy - preach one thing do another, "do this because this is the way I say" attitude, VERY long work hours and very frequent weekend work. Working with the union is almost impossible. Union vs. Management attitude. Cyclical industry - just laid off tons of union employees. Don't keep promises. Rotated shifts. And the list goes on...

Advice to Senior Management – Wake up - its 2009, not the 20's

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at United States Steel

Pros – Money, benefits, Money, benefits. Profit sharing.

Cons – Work-life balance does not exist. Management reacts does not act. Manage in fear of making a decision. Absolutely no recognition or praise. Very "old school" attitudes toward minorities and females.

Advice to Senior Management – Update yourselves! Stop being afraid to lead! Understand that people want direction and want to respect you.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – If you want to be exposed to a good Industrial environment than United States Steel is a great place to work. You will be exposed to many things quickly and will see how a big manufacturing company runs its business.

Cons – Sometimes working longs hours can be tough. The environment out in the plants is dirty and you have to wear Personal protective gear when working around machines and equipment. work environment can be noisy and sometimes it is hard to work with people of a diverse background and qualifications. Union environment is an example of that.

Advice to Senior Management – You must see the potential in the younger generation and keep them up to date of their future goals and opportunities.

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – Home grown atmosphere, meaning upper management is felt all the way down to front line employees. Strongly support & help with furthering education.

Cons – 24-hr production 365 DEMANDING. Personal life becomes a dream rather than reality

Advice to Senior Management – Continually evolve training methods for effectiveness.

Current Employee – been working at United States Steel

Pros – Many different technologies are utilized which allow IT workers to gain a great deal of experience. Past developers seem to have utilized whichever technology they were most familiar with and this lead to many systems being pieced together by whoever the project was assigned to. While this is a poor way to design systems it does allow developers to gain experience in learning systems and learning the good and bad ways to develop code that can be supported easily in the future. The management I have worked with has also been very supportive of developers as they spend time learning new systems or new programming languages in order to complete their projects.

Cons – Recent company wide layoffs have left many people without jobs, despite what was going to be a record year in profit up until around August. The upper level management has not allowed the IT management to make any decisions as to who can stay and who cannot. This will result in the company losing a great deal of talent as the workers migrate to new positions before the plants are re-opened and the workers are asked to come back. Additionally, workers are often required to be 'on call' on weekends and holidays as the plant is (was) run 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in upgrading older systems to make use of new technology.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend