"At will" is very standard in the industry, especially for contract work. I have had several jobs that were set up that way and in each I was there multiple years without an issue. It allows the company to dump if you if you really really suck or if you just don't "fit in".
As for financial work. Expect a lot of focus on rules, regulations, and auditing. One of my previous positions was in the financial division of a very large company and we were independently audited for compliance at least 2 times a year, keep your paperwork in order. Be able to explain everything. Finally I also have experience with boths side of the insource/outsource world. I have been the one in an outside company taking over and doing the work and have been the one on the inside insourcing the work. Insouring, IMO, is harder than outsourcing. With outsourcing, everyone is mostly of the same mind (with the exception of the people whose jobs will not be the same in the company that is outsourcing). When you insource, you have the concerted efforts of the outsource company against you. It shouldn't be that way but they tend to be rather "evil" towards you. Don't much expect to get documentation, etc on how things are done, why, and when. Before you start taking things over, have a good idea of what is there and the general big picture of it all. The insourcing I did (clearly seen on my resume) was to grab back the AD I built when I worked for the company the work was outsourced to previously (that I had worked on the outsourcing of). However I had been out of the loop for 6 months and when I took it back over, though I had a great understanding of what was supposed to be there and how it all fit together, it still took about 18 months to get it all cleaned up to a pristine environment again that I had left behind 6 months previous. The thing I like to tell people, any idiot can screw AD up, it takes a real wizard to go in and find all of the screwed up inconsistent things and correct them. AD (and Exchange) can stumble along with lots of things not right until there are enough not right things to knock it down and then you are in trouble. The goal when going into an environment you didn't build, is trying to find all of the things not right. This involves a lot of careful listening to anyone who mentions any kind of symptom as well as just browsing over the objects and getting a feel for what is there. Expect to work some pretty heavy hours to get it under control. My recommendation is to make sure the core things are working right up front - AD,FRS replication, and DNS. Then circle out from there. If you find something wrong, put together a script to audit all other locations that same thing could be wrong and anything similar that could be wrong. Lots of luck. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kern, Tom Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 10:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ActiveDir] OT: new job I just got offered a position with a consulting company where I would be consulting full time for a major financial corp in NYC as their AD/Exchange guy. I'm a little nervous and I was wondering if anyone here had experience with big financial corps and IT. Is it very different from doing IT for a "normal" company. Their situation is that they outsourced all their Exchange/AD infrastructure and now they want to take it back and have someone support it full time. As it stands, their relationship is not so hot with the outsourcing firm which is reluctant to give them too much info. In fact I don't think anyone there has Domain or Enterprise Admin access as it stands. Finally, the other thing that makes me nervous is, I'd be working fulltime for the consulting firm(until after 3 months if the finanical corp would want me to join them fulltime, I'd work for them). In the consulting company "handbook" which clearly states is not legally binding, the state in bold letters that they reserve the right to let you go for any reason. That kinda scares me. Is that normal? Are they just covering their butt? Thanks. My apologies for the way OT. -------------------------- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net) List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
