Pros
Recently retired from AIG after 35 years. If you’re looking for the best benefits package available, no other firm even comes close to AIG. Pension and 100% matching 401K up to 6% and more vacation days than you know what to do with. After a certain job grade, managers (along with some staff) are also eligible for LTI (long-term incentive), which is a “bonus on top of a bonus” for great performance. Once you’re “at the top,” your total compensation rises to a level that reminds many outsiders why they despised AIG for using taxpayer money to dole out such exorbitant bonuses.
Cons
To be clear, this is not the AIG of old. Gone are the days of the company 1) going out of its way to develop its employees, and 2) consistently tying top performance to rewards and advancement for all employees. AIG is now like any other greedy 21st century firm: it showers its executives with incredibly lucrative compensation packages, all the while gutting its North American staff while opening Asian/Pacific centers to engineer cost-savings. Unless your business unit drastically underperforms, (again) once you as an executive are at the top, your career is pretty much set. Consequently, this creates a bleak state of affairs for middle and lower management. If you are not in an executive-level position, I cannot emphasize enough that your job could be next on the chopping block. That warning is especially important for North American business units. If you cannot engineer substantial cost-savings on a regular basis, AIG will find a way to move your work overseas to someone who 1) costs 1/3 as much, and 2) is willing to consistently work 12-13 hour days. Therefore, you have to become 3x-4x more productive to offset any advantage gained through an outsourcing action – it’s a vicious zero-sum game. Concurrently, “at the top,” AIG is fiercely protective of its own. While more managerial and staff positions will be shipped overseas, AIG’s executives are virtually invulnerable to getting pink-slipped. This is reflected in the changing “make-up” of the employees: while the staff and lower/middle managers are getting more diverse and more off-shore, “the top” still remains largely Caucasian male. It need not be said that “it is like that for a reason.” With all of that being said, unless you can break into “the top,” you as an employee will be stuck in a vicious cycle. If you’re not consistently getting “1” ratings (top 10%), you have no chance at being promoted or getting a significant bonus, and have only a slim chance at getting a (paltry) raise. If you’re not getting even a “2” rating, I cannot stress enough that your career with AIG will go nowhere. You might survive the offshoring, but it will take an act of God to advance in the company. If you’re getting “3s, 4s, and 5s,” start circulating your resume with other firms, as AIG does not provide “2-weeks notice” to those outside of the executive ranks. That last point merits repetition: If you are not among the top 10% of AIG employees, your career stands a tremendous chance of going nowhere. Granted, you could undergo an internal transfer to a higher level/grade position. However, you’d be starting back at Square 1 with a different team, dynamic, command chain (etc.) that you’ll have to work in for another few years before having to contemplate “jumping ship” again to avoid further stagnation.