NBC Universal a training ground for GE trainees - Director NBCUniversal Employee Review

2.0
Mar 21, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Really fun to work for a studio since you work with great content

Cons

Horrible unless you are an IMLP, FMLP or OMLP which is their GE leadership program. You graduate from this program and basically step on everyone else to become a manager at least. Some even become Directors and have been out of school for only a few years. Very poor management especially middle to upper management. Many people leave and get tired of working long hours without any recognition unless they are part of the GE click. I worked for a few managers and all were not very good but had been at NBC for years so the review process is not doing a great job at weeding out poor talent. The review process is a joke as your raise is not related to how well you do. Overall management do not have enough to do and spend their day looking at their emails or lecturing their employees on how to talk to people. Yes you read that right. Go back and watch Office Space if you want to imagine what it would be like working in this very corporate studio. I always wondered what Directors or VPs (so many of them) did all day. They don't manage projects, produce anything, manage their teams effectively, empower their people or do anything. Please remove some of these layers and you will save millions. I am not saying fire everyone but look at how GE has turned NBC Universal into a training ground for their management program trainees. I came from an investment banking background and found it very frustrating to see these trainees who have no track record be given multi million dollar projects to manage and when they screwed up others were asked to step in and clean up the mess. As a matter of fact some of these made "managers" did the company a favor and left on their own only to have their covers blown and some even got fired. GE can save money if they stopped supporting these programs which have such a poor track record. I am glad I went to another studio where I feel very respected. My experience, education and abilities are very recognized. Everyone who has been promoted around me deserves it.

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5.0
Jun 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good environment and location. Easy to assimilate

Cons

Expensive area and not a lot of growth potential

3.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

NBCUniversal is full of smart, funny, talented people who genuinely care about the work. I learned a tremendous amount there, especially about programming, production, audience strategy, brand management, budgets, talent, internal politics, and how a major media company actually functions when the glossy press release meets the spreadsheet. The brands are still powerful. NBC, Peacock, Bravo, USA, SYFY, E!, and the broader portfolio have real history, real audiences, and real cultural weight. When the company is aligned, it can move beautifully. You get exposure to major shows, high-level conversations, complex productions, and the kind of institutional knowledge you cannot really get anywhere smaller. It is also a place where you can build real taste and real judgment. You see what works, what almost works, what dies in a conference room, and what somehow survives three leadership changes and a budget cut.

Cons

The biggest downside is instability. NBCUniversal has been through major structural change, including the cable network spinoff into Versant, divestitures, reorganizations, and significant layoffs. That kind of uncertainty changes the job. You are not just doing the work. You are trying to understand which version of the company you work for this quarter. Decision-making can also be slow and heavily layered. There are a lot of smart people, but sometimes too many of them need to bless the same sentence, deck, cut, budget, or idea. The result is that good work can get sanded down, delayed, or rerouted through a maze wearing a lanyard. The company also asks people to do more with less, then less with less, then somehow make it feel premium. That is exhausting. Especially for employees who care deeply and are trying to protect the creative, the business, and their own sanity without being handed a map.

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