Pros
You have nice work/life balance ( long live French labor laws ! laziness maxed out legally ). Good opportunities to learn, do courses and obtain some certifications. Very international site, a lot of nationalities and lots of activities.
Cons
The worst part is the salary and the fact that HR will literally mislead you during the hiring process. They will tell you that you will earn above the local average. But the small detail which is not mentioned, is that the "local" Montpellier average is 1500 euros net, while the France average is 2200 euros net…..So as an Enterprise technical support agent you will earn around 20% BELOW (yes; below, under) the French average salary. Besides this, Montpellier is on the Mediterranean seaside, and it's one of the most expensive towns after Paris, Nice/Cannes. The salary raise is 1-2% , if you get one (it depends only of your manager), and that is below the usual inflation rate of 3%. So actually you are getting a salary decrease each year. During the almost 3 years spent here, I lost all my savings which I made from my previous job as end-user support. Some people stay even like this because they round up their salary with spare parts dispatched to themselves. During the years I spent at Dell, I never ever had a review where we've talked about metrics and targets with my manager. Metrics, targets, performance and customer satisfaction are numbers which are never taken into account during your career at Dell Montpellier. These are just some numbers which are required by the management and the ITIL process. Manipulation of these numbers is a common and daily practice, and it is encouraged by managers. Team meetings and team buildings are enforced like the communist parties meetings where you have to clap the leader ; and if you do not go, you will surely get a bad performance review. Broad view is an unknown expression. all the persons who are in higher technical or administrative positions, they know someone but not something, and there is absolutely no exception to this "rule". The job opportunities which are not entry level, are pre-arranged, hiring managers know at least 6 months in advance what position will they open and exactly who is going to obtain that position. It's never the best performer. The best performers are left in their position because they do their job very well. Obtaining a "senior" title or grade is out of question even after being best performer for years, there is no budget for such a things. Discrimination is on a level what I've only seen in movies. While during interviews HR will tell you that the official language within Dell is English and you don't need French, onsite you will face the reality and see that people don't speak English and you are being bombed by email in different languages besides French like Italian and Spanish, and just wondering whether that is for you or not. You will be left out of any opportunities as long as you do not speak French. Also I've seen my teammates who applied to senior roles for the UK/Ireland market but they were refused because of the lack of French language skills.
