Pros
Company fairly willing to pay for external professional development. If you were a C- student at your regional university, but really know how to party, Imerys is your chance for a moonshot. Bonus points if you rose through the ranks of your frat or sorority. If you function by improving your connections more so than your skills, this is your home.
Cons
Very nepotistic environment and the professional staff is composed largely of lack-luster incompetents. You likely won't learn anything you don't teach yourself, using outside sources. Technology severely lagging. Not a resume builder for operations or technical professionals...you'll be using Lotus Notes, not Office, and won't see any Six Sigma, Lean, or SPC in place, much less be trained on it. You won't be asked to simulate or model any processes, just troubleshoot ancient equipment for mechanical issues that should be handled by operators and maintenance staff. Aging workforce. At 24 yrs old, I felt like toddler in a sea of wrinkles. Not necessarily a bad thing, if senior staff knows their stuff, but for for the most part, these greybeards don't. They seem to have made a career by simply playing nice with the other lackeys and have now become afflicted with short-timers syndrome. Moving up has little or nothing to do with performance and everything to do with being fun at cocktail hour...and possibly fun after cocktail hour (wink, wink). I saw the few bright, hard-working, young professionals we had go unnoticed for their positive impacts and many pretty and/or flirtatious girls and charming guys who, admittedly, were fun to drink with, but brought little else to the organization, get noticed for their "positive attitude", "enthusiasm", "energy" and other intangibles typically used to promote or recognize your friends and female staff you would like to or have already slept with. Parisian headquarters has been trimming some fat and bringing in more European/South American managers to the US headquarters, so maybe they are aware of the problem, if not the causes.
