Symantec Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – Good location and working environment (nice canteen, gym,coffee shops). Great products that pretty much sell themselves. Great work / life balance.

Cons – Restructuring seems endless and relentless

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – professional environment with large, corporate culture and values. Internal applicants favored for new positions etc. Given a long trail of acquisitions, many different business units and product groups to suit all tastes.

Cons – a company run by managers for managers ... technical staff not valued and seen as a necessary inconvenience. New CEO vision and strategy will hopefully address this.

Advice to Senior Management – focus on an organic growth strategy - recognize that as a technology company, technical staff should be seen as key players and valued as such.

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

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for more than a year

Pros – Interesting technology
Decent work environment
New CEO shows that there may be some hope

Cons – Little to no support from senior management - strategy and operational execution do not align
Focus is on making quarterly numbers, so no real room to encourage business to grow in 12-18 month window
No real HR department (very few business partners and only available at executive level)
You are asked to be proactive (management speak), but then told to deal with reactive issues

Advice to Senior Management – Symantec has potential but the culture is aggressive (in the UK) and there is little to no trust between departments. You need a HR leader in Europe and a visible HR function.

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

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great work-life balance, good pay and benefits, awesome people to work with generally.

Cons – Management has too many layers - not always good at facilitating effective change, but I think this is getting better.

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

Current Employee – been working at Symantec full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good people, technology and opportunity

Cons – Restructuring seems endless and relentless

Advice to Senior Management – Lets focus on what got us here, and review its relevance.

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

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Pay is a bit above industry average

Cons – It's more of a sales and marketing company than an IT company. Poor product quality.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in good product and strong internal IT people.

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

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great benefits and salaries in general. Good location and working environment (nice canteen, gym,coffee shops). Great products that pretty much sell themselves.

Cons – A great company is let down by the exec team and the large number of middle management who dont really add anything to the company. Very easy for people to do no work and get rewarded for it. Too many politics , with a lack of direction overall. Also seems impossible to integrate the companies they bought ending up with a "them and us" situation.
Also a place where who shouts loudest gets the credit and recognition which is very very demotivating.

Advice to Senior Management – Recognise the reliable true hard workers, learn to integrate the acquisitions and learn to use peoples strengths.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good people, great technology, good customer facing experience, interesting projects, lots of freedom shown in how you manage your work, good training ethic, keen to reward and recognise contribution.

Cons – Completely sales focussed and adopts a very transactional approach, Need to become more solutions focussed to broaden the experience and make the company more competitive.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop paying lip service to solution selling and make it a reality. We have the technology and the people.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec as an intern for more than a year

Pros – Big company - opportunity to do real hands on work. Very interesting technologies as they are the leaders in security software.

Cons – Sometimes not willing to adopt new technologies and sticking to old methods. Pay could be better

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great team members - market leading products.

Technology on the forefront.

Cons – Management are completely out of touch with the challenges, the sales teams are facing.
They do not show any respect or understanding - are hardly even visiable.

I have never in my life worked in a company with such an incompetent senior sales management team.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen and show respect.

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