Career Prospects at Ericsson

There are so many of us stuck on job stage 4 with no real indication of when we will be given a promotion. And the line managers tell us next to nothing about what we need to do to get there. They mention GIAP but no one shows us how it works. One of the hurdles for GIAP is the ETCP assessment, and the ETCP assessment website gives you just a list of about a million degreed videos to go through before doing the assessment (see previous comment for issues with degreed), which none of us have time to do because we're already doing the work of a JS 5 or 6.

This is not a strength of my company. Mobility within the company is challenging. There is a job stage process that you must continue through to reach higher pay grades. I have seen engineers operating above their job stage, but ineligible for consideration for higher levels due to their length of employment. Moving between teams and projects is difficult for engineers.

Despite taking on stretch opportunities, being visible in the company and performing outside my regular duties, I have been told that promotion opportunities are blocked by MOAI (until further notice). This is very disheartening as someone who is trying to bring their whole self to work and perform at a high level. It seems there is no motivation to retain and promote the young professionals in the company and therefore, they are leaving (by their own free will or being made redundant). Moreover, I have taken on stretch opportunities at both Job stage 5 and 6 levels for over a year, despite being job stage 4. It feels as though, taking on tasks that align with promotion and progression do not result in either.

I'm keen to continue progressing in the IT-Networks field and the company has the resources to help me accomplish this goal !

This is my biggest gripe with the company. In order to progress through the "formal" channels, you must jump through a number of hurdles, including technical exam(s), a very in-depth technical and business-focussed presentation and an interview, just to be ELIGIBLE for a promotion. This does not guarantee one. However, the most common way of gaining promotions and circumventing this process is to leave the company and get re-hired in the new role. This often proves more efficient both in terms of time taken and pay received. I even did this myself - received a much better offer from another company before they would even consider giving me a promotion. Once I had a written offer and was about to leave, suddenly there are no hurdles to jump and a promotion was handed to me. This is an extremely frustrating situation, as I have watched countless numbers of my peers (both recent graduates and seasoned professionals/experts) leave for greener pastures rather than go through the onerous promotion process. Our staff retention is suffering as a direct result - it is extremely disheartening to have loyalty rewarded with poorer pay and worse career opportunities. In my opinion, Ericsson should behave like any other company. Good work gets rewarded with good pay. Simple as that. In terms of available opportunities, it is quite dry at the moment, though I know the company is going through a difficult time in terms of contract renewals. There is not much room to move into new roles right now, and that has been the case for over a year now. Normally, though, job opportunities are posted internally regularly and anyone is welcome to apply, provided the above-mentioned criteria is met.

My personal experience has been much better than most, but that could be attributed to the fact that our team works for the largest Telco in Australia and have performed consistently as one of the best teams in the market area. Even then, the process to actually progress does not match up with the guidelines. I have work colleagues who have been with the company for longer and have not been offered any form of salary increase/job stage increase. Some of these people have responsibilities on the same level as Architects, but yet are paid at the level of entry-level engineers. In my opinion, this is very unfair and I cannot stress how serious of a problem this is. If these teams were to lose these guys, I sincerely believe the impact to the teams would not be something that they can deal with for long months.

Promotion has fifty-one shades in Ericsson. Too much is there to learn on top of our BAU activities, but it is never clear what is needed to take us to the next level of growth and promotion. Only an automation guru from every team gets promoted and appraised regularly by higher management.

As mentioned before, it is extremely hard to find opportunities and support to make career progression. This is due to the saturation we have with senior and next level roles and lack of business expansion. There's also the hesitancy to break out of the traditional mould to trust and engage YPs for roles with higher stakes

I'm not too informed on the promotion opportunities within Ericsson, but considering one of the employees in my team and one in the adjacent team got moved up a job stage, I feel that as long as you have the experience and do the work, you'll be able to move up.

Haven't been able to be promoted yet. Very early to tell.

Given this year we were informed that no JS5 opportunities would be available, it's hard to see where the promotion opportunities will arise. It is also apparent that the Job Stage/ GIAP processes are simply convenient boundaries to limit promotion opportunities as they're not always required for promotions but are the first thing mentioned when promotions are declined. It would appear the best way to progress in a career at Ericsson is to search for opportunities elsewhere and either take them then return sometime in the future, or to voice those opportunities to your manager which can sometimes miraculously find hidden promotions and extra budget to keep specific employees onboard.

GIAP feels more like an obstacle than a support at times