Working at Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur, IL: 15 Employee Job Reviews by Real Employee working in Decatur, IL Area

"Solid, large corporation. Multiple ways to gain experience in multiple areas of the industry"

"Great pay and time off, but the company has either fired or forced early retirement of 1200 people per year for the last three years."

"I worked for ADM for 26 yrs. it is a great company to work for that allows employees to grow however they want."

"It has decent pay, but hours are horrible for family life. Morale is not always the highest and there are no opportunities to move up within the company."

"On the whole, very positive and exciting."

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"The Challenge of the Project. We were building the worlds largest and first CarbonDioxide Sequestration Facility."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Do reseach and know what you are gettinginto. Grain processing ops. is not an excitingtechnical biz. However, certain projects theyhave for the future are technically challenging."

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"Sometimes the process created badodors which did not aggree with me."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"They knew exacly what they were doing.No suggestions. ADM has been in thegrain processing business for 80 plus years and they know their business inside and out.they know"

"management not supportive"

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"The corp office has a nice cafeteria. Onsite bank is nice."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Don't waste your time, interview for a company that doesn't lay people off. It could be you that gets laid off as they left the decision up to the leaders of the areas. If that person dont care for you; you will be on unemployment. I can say I am currently search for a different job!"

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"work on salary and the division controller of the oilseeds crush dept expects us all to stay till at least 6:00 p.m. He has no respect for his employees, he sits in his office and does nothing while we are running reports and info for him and he takes all the credit. It is only if something is wrong that our names get mentioned. Treat support staff such as accounting clerk like they are peons. They do the same work as us and get a 1/4 of the pay and recognition."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Your average pay employees are the ones working their fingers to the bones for you yet you treat them terrible. The only way to move up in this company is to brown nose your way to the top."

"ADM is a good place to work, but if you want to learn and use the latest technologies and skills seek elsewhere."

"Avoid at all cost!"

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"The challenge."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"If you must take the job, be prepared for 60+ weeks. Plan for how you will go to the doctor, get your car repaired, etc.. They won't give you any time for that and they will make you feel guilty taking time off for anything."

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"Opressive management."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Leave project engineering to project engineers --- don't dump it on the production engineers. Start investing in an MOC and continuous improvement plan."

"Don't work for ADM."

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"I learned how best to run a production staff without proper support from maintenance, process engineering, or project engineering, with inadequate control systems on a shoe-string budget. It is possible to do so but it takes a lot of work."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Stress your experience with projects. They like to have production engineers who can do projects simultaneously."

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"80+ weeks, a good-ol boy management system. They used to say that smart people left after a few years; turnover among product managers was over 20% in my first 6 months. If they like you, you might get a chance to stay; if not, they'll make your days a nightmare. They used to have a saying that ADM stood for another dead man because of their poor safety record. They claim to have improved but from what I saw, they filled a lot of file cabinets with safety inspections and recommendations. A contractor later told me that they dump the files when filled. I turned them into OSHA on several violations shortly after leaving. I was not being vindicative, though it brought some satisfaction, it was because of the serious dangers there, including the risk of dust explosions. I learned a few things while there but it was not worth the pain and suffering. Oh, by the way, the typical work hours there are 6:30 am to 7 pm. Mostly, they only hire fresh engineers. They wake up and quit a few years later."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"It would not do any good. They are the survivors. You either fit in at ADM or they flush you out rather quickly. Young engineers adapt the best. Besides, they know what is wrong at ADM and have accepted it."

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"it was ok"

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"keep at it ADM takes a while to get in the door"

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"The people are not too friendly to get along with."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"More interaction between departments"

"Excellent"

What do you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"Security - ADM is a solid company that is over 100 years old with 30,000 employees...I never saw anyone get laid off"

What don't you like about working at Archer Daniels Midland?

"Too big of a company and very stiff -- reminds you of a company stuck int he 1960's structurally and management"

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Try to be flexible with employees, find ways to comp them when you ask for 60 hour weeks."