From my experience it wasn't easy to get a job with ATT on resume. Does it seem to you that many companies when they see ATT on resume have a prejudice that it is a slow, unmotivated worker who does a very sloppy job? I hope it’s just some of my subjective feeling.
13 replies (most recent on top)
I put my resume on indeed last night. Already received several emails for interviews.
It depends on what your role is. For example AT&T has tons of network engineers who know nothing about networks. I can guarantee you if you ask them about throughput or latency, none will know what that truly means. It's because AT&T is really process oriented with many positions requiring no hard thinking skills.
I miss AT&T because it was really non stressful work lol. These legacy jobs are cake and dont require much cirtical thinking. One of the main reason why I left the company to pursue other avenues. If I had my choice, I would have left first thing out of college. but I stayed there 4 more years than I needed too.
a lot of college hires in the business development program work at at&t for 1 to 2 years, and with that experience, are highly sought after by start ups who want people with "Fortune 100" experience; and veteran b2b sales people go on to even bigger and better opportunities at fellow Fortune 100 companies like Microsoft, AWS, Apple, Samsung etc. Top employees at AT&T can get a job anywhere without having AT&T experience as a "negative".
there is a general feeling that at&t is an older workforce and lazy. leadership has helped mold this view. they have been a utter disaster. lets be honest leadership has developed processes and jobs that don't even exist in other companies. lets even be more honest, if given a choice prospective employees would NOT have at&t on the top 10 list of companies to work for top 50 probably not,...that view tells you all you need to know.
I deal regularly with att as a corporate customer. The impression of the organization and its employees from this side is bad. These words describe my experiences perfectly -
'slow, unmotivated worker who does a very sloppy job'
I do blame management. They are responsible for the culture that creates and permits this.
There's definitely a stigma surrounding AT&T workers, but it's generally reserved towards those that are in customer service fields. The reason for that should be completely obvious.
large mega corporations, believe it or not, its a small world from company to company. many times company you are looking to gain employment are well aware of issues with company you were downsized or looking to leave.
I had more than a few hiring managers/HR who knew of division I worked in, part of a major media conglomerate. they would not hold back at all, an example would be something along lines of wow, you survived X number of years at THAT place? the reputation was so bad as far as treatment of employees and mismanagement that competitors knew of situation. actually had someone say, if you can handle that facility, division, you will have no problem handling workload here. they were such surreal experiences and confirmed that I was in a very bad work environment. kinda blew my mind.
anyway, for multitude of reasons, stayed where I was, in hindsight, terrible decision. I assure you though, other companies are aware of mismanagement of their competitors and will not hold that against you. like I said, for such large mega corporations, it's a small world.
John Legere and Mike Sievert were ex-AT&T employees. T-Mobile is on a big tear and they both go good jobs
Maybe if you are a 'job hopper', 2 years here, three years there you would have some problems but people I know that have left after 25 or 30 years have absolutely no problem getting snapped up quickly. Their only problem is they are now looking for something they would "enjoy" instead of just any job..
yep been to two places since I left the cesspool att and interviewed people from att and didn't hire them. you basically have to test them and see what they know and most of the time I find that the people from att are not very good. I guess that is why everyone fights tooth and nail to keep their job at att because they can't get a job anywhere else.
When I was college people would camp out to get on the list to hopefully get an interview with BellSouth (now AT&T). You had to have a 3.5/4.0 GPA just to get considered. It was an honor to get the interview and then hired.
I take some comfort in my network. I am still here after a couple decades, but many that I have crossed paths with, that I have worked for, or have worked for me are gone. I had good relationships with most of these people and I try to maintain them, by reaching out from time to time or connecting via LinkedIn etc. I believe strongly that it’s the network that you have and that you work you maintain that will help you land the next gig. If you don’t have one, and you don’t have any contact with any of your peers or directs or anyone after they’ve left, you might want to look in the mirror and ask yourself why.
I think the OP may very well be projecting. I sincerely doubt that hiring managers at every other company believes that every T employee is some sort of layabout loafer.
I'm a case in point. I got surplussed in Oct last year and started my new gig in Feb. I had maybe a dozen interviews in those 4 months, several which went through multiple layers before I found the right fit for me. In none of those interviews did I get the sense at all that anyone saw my time at T as a negative.
Besides, just because T is run by a pack of greedy incompetents doesn't mean that those doing the work are the same. If it turns out the OP is having a hard time getting an offer it may just be that there are a lot of people still looking for jobs, so competition is tough. Or it could be that they are out of practice interviewing. Or it may be that their resume needs a bit of a cleanup. Or it could be that they are a layabout loafer and that comes through.
Of course, maybe the fact that I have DIRECTV on my resume before T tells hiring managers that I was one of the quality people T invaded and then let go.