I am hoping to give an objective view here.
I am not in a bad spot with Imperial, but wish I had left earlier. Have been looking to bail for 5 years now, since the last bust, but the generalist experience results into almost no interview calls. For a truthful view however, hard to beat the salary and pension at this point in the career, based on current scales.
For the younger folks 5yrs and maybe even 10Yrs, I believe you have to be either desperate or a buffoon to plan a career with the Company now. Reasons.... well there are many, but here are my top 3:
1- This industry has no growth and maybe no long-term future. Energy change is going to sweep Europe and NA earlier than Exxon would like to admit.
Exxon is going to be the last one to change, and my bet is it will be too late by then driving Europe and NA asset prices into the ground. Will be forced to sell to lower cost operators / shutdown with employees part of sales / closures.
2- Can you imagine waking-up every day with a feeling that you are going to jail daily.....for the next 30-40Yrs? This is how it feels to go to work.
It is an understatement that the culture is toxic. Ranking / Assessment system drives everything important for you including roles offered, salary, RSUs etc. But most importantly it drives how people behave, talk and treat you....every day!
Your colleagues are driven to be selfish with daily mindset to get ahead in the race. Your manager's control your destiny and use their authority with impunity to mistreat you, micromanage you and instruct you like Kindergarteners (even when you are more experienced than them). Worst still, the Company thinks changing managers every 2-3Yrs is necessary for their growth. So, you have a relatively ignorant boss every 2-3Yrs, and 99.9% of his/her effort is to steal / take credit of their workforce's accomplishments to maintain their own ranking.
Lots of policies to save the Company's interest, but you report any personal issue with HR/Controllers etc. your career is toast.
3- Don't be fooled by the pamphlets and cool-aid policies...fact is if you are not an American, and definitely if you don't have Houston experience you have a torturous mid / late career with this Company.
It is a company strategy to rank employees relatively highly in the 1st 10-yrs. Once you are hooked almost everyone is dropped in rankings Years 10-25.
Fact is that top 2-layers of imperial are filled with Americans, and just to tick the box a few Canadians who have done the pilgrimage to Houston to swear allegiance to the actual Kings (Exxon Presidents and VPs).
It is no surprise and very natural then that these American top-tier has ZERO interest in mind for Canadian employees. They are driven on a 3-4 Yr time horizon, to achieve bullet points for their Assessment Write-ups to sell to the Kings / Queens down South.
Hope this helps.....