it analyst

consultant

software engineer

direct support professional

database specialist

FDM Group

All right I am going to be as candid as possible in this synopsis.
Yes FDM does give you the foundation to jumpstart a career in IT especially for college graduates.  But it has severe reprucussions and generally exploits the desperation of individuals trying to find work as well, in particular recent college graduates which is their target market.
    FDM's Business model is predicated on maximizing profit above all else.  So they're streams are accelerated learning environment which is essentially blazing through a myriad of topics with no reverse gear.  Different streams include Hadoop, which was mine as well as application support, data/financial analysis, project management.  This profit driven mentality is why they train you in such a rapid fashion and attempt to flush you out to clients ASAP.  So they can prepare for the next batch of trainees "slaves".  This is done all so the smoothe talking salesman can make they're precious commissions off us.  There are really two factions that drive FDM those being the sales side and the IT side.  Really a classic salesman and his merchandise dynamic implemented by the company designed to heavily favor the salesman.  This dynamic runs from 9am-5:30pm weekdays.

    When you take an objective step back and analyze your role with FDM underneath it all.  You realize this is smoke and mirrors accentuated by a highly manipulative contract structured solely to benefit the company in every capacity.  The most obvious exploitative aspect being the extremely low pay curve.  They give you peanuts in comparison to the profits they make off each placement.  That isn't debatable.  The irony is they more than have the resources to make your salary semi competitive to a similar entry level software engineer position it's just they choose not to.  That facility is a high rise skyscraper Wall Street!!!  What you are trained for isn't necessarily a guarantee as to what you will be doing with a client which at some level defeats the purpose.  

As I can only speak from the standpoint of the Hadoop stream I can tell you you'll learn SQL, Linux/UNIX, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, CSS as well as Oracle, Java and of course Hadoop.  FDM's personal resources are decent but they're not groundbreaking and you'd be just as fine if not better learning these languages from a comprehensive site like Udemy.

Management is relatively hands off unless you do something egregious.  Acts like consistent lateness, cursing someone out, severe underperformance.  Obvious discrepancies that draw attention to yourself like that.  It's just best to go about your business get along relatively decent with the staff in place and productively learn.

The FDM Group is a sham of a company. They hire quite literally anyone on the condition that you have a stringent contract that locks you in with threat of extreme monetary punishment if you want out. All this while underpaying you greatly while they rake in significant amounts of overhead. 

On top of this, the conditions you are expected to live in during training are absolutely deplorable. The NY office forces you to live, with another person, in a small room with two single beds, no more than 10 feet of usable floor space, a single closet with a single rack the is only about 3 feet long (that you must use for both of your professional attire including suits, dress shirts, dress pants, belts, and ties). The place you are staying also has communal bathrooms that are expected to be shared between you and the other 50-some people on the same floor as you. There are no extra areas for you to talk or hang out with anyone in the building, the only available rooms are completely barren of any furniture. This means that there is not a single chair anywhere in the entire building. Anytime you spend there will either be spent on the floor or on your bed.

To make matters worse, all expenses while you are living in this hovel are completely on you. You are not supplied with food, transportation, or anything other than your closet-sized room that you must share with another person. It all comes out of the very meager payment you make while you are training. This includes the roughly $110 a month you must spend on a pass to take the subway to and from the office on Wall Street. That's right, you have to pay for a pass so that you can walk and take a crowded subway train to get to the office you will be training in, because not only is the office for the company in one of the most expensive parts of the city, where you are staying is also nowhere near it. As if that's not enough, you're expected to wear full formal attire, that's a suit, suit pants, belt, and tie every day. This is said to be for in the event a company wants to do a spontaneous interview in FDM's office. In the months I was there, this NEVER happened. To anyone.

The training itself is a mixed bag. Some of the trainers are very good teachers. However, many of them and other portions of the staff leave much to be desired, as well as their way of correcting behavior. The company's way of correcting a mistake is to utterly humiliate its employees and shame them in front of other people being trained. Several times I witnessed someone else be more or less verbally abused because they went to the bathroom without locking their computer.

Do not touch this company with a 10 foot pole if you value yourself, you can and will find somewhere better.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Legitimately, the best part is their resume building and maybe the experience they can offer.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
You are always pressured into landing a role and getting outsourced while also not getting payed well even though you may have to move to a location that forces you to go paycheck to paycheck. You also become less marketable to other companies if you refuse to go outside of your location. You are supposed to be entry level and learning but it really depends on the client how much they want from you so it's possible to be way in over your head and it's probably not even your fault. Some of these companies that you get outsourced to want you to take on a role without paying you well, that's why they go to companies like FDM. However, you don't learn anything of value that's transferable, unless you're a developer I suppose. I would not recommend this company to anyone. The training is not specialized and videos on Youtube will offer more value than the courses they provide in training. The expectations are crazy and the pay is not good, especially when some of the locations make it so that you have to live basically paycheck to paycheck which makes no sense when you're doing a tech job. Only go if you are desperate and have no direction in your life. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Nobody really seems to care about you apart from maybe someone you talk to 1 on 1 weekly. In the end, you are a product being marketed and your interactions with the sales team can make you feel that way.  You will be interacting a lot with account managers so get used to it.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
You have a training period where you learn multiple types of skills. This goes on about 3 months from what I remember, it could be longer. You go through multiple training sessions for that amount of time and then after that period you create your resume and try to land a role for an account manager. From here you will be put in groups and will work on projects that just exist to build up skills. It consists of a standup call and then going about your day. The day to day when you get placed a company varies on the company that hires you.

FDM provides great IT and Financial training to many recent undergraduates that have completed their schooling and to many others seeking to break into the world of IT.

Covering topics from Unix shell scripting, training in Oracle SQL databases, Excel VBA, Java, Financial and Business Analysis, as well as preparing you for your ITIL v3 Foundation certification the 12+ week unpaid training period is worth it-- but there is a catch.

Once training is complete, and you have signed of with the Academy trainers, a 90 day placement period begins. When it succeeds FDM will have placed you at one of many reputable financial service companies or investment banks within the NY tristate area, at which time your are 'leased' out to these companies for a 2 year period under FDM. When your 2 year period is up, you are free to stay with the leasing company, if they chose to keep you on.

When FDM fails, there is a 90 day waiting period. After completing the training period there is no guarantee FDM will place you. After the 90 day period if you are not placed, you are free to pursue other options.

FDM Group is a good organization as they provide essential skills that are essential for IT roles in financial industries. However, for me the pacing of some of the courses were significantly difficult as I hadn't had previous exposure to these concepts. When viewing similar material, the course ranges for 3 to 5 weeks. I understand that FDM wants to get trainees to clients but the model of cramming all the information in one to two week intervals is unusual in my opinion. Especially for individuals who do not have any prior knowledge. They pay that they offer once placed is significantly lower than what the pay is in the market. There appears to be disconnection between account managers and some trainees due to location and availability. The culture at FDM is to dress professionally consistently to understand the professional work environment. That is a good policy but many corporations and organizations dress code is business casual. My co-workers at FDM were great and made the experience wonderful. There were some trainers that were nice and want people to succeed but some didn't really teach.

Standard contracting company, lease you out for two years to the first of their clients that will accept you. You don't get a say where in the country you go. New York? SF? DC? Have fun on the poverty-level wages.

It is marketed for fresh graduates or people that are transitioning from military life to the tech sphere. In that sense they do great. It is  a step in the door with real world experience. But purely the fact that there is no cost of living adjustments for the highest COL cities in the country is crazy. You get paid the same if you go live in St Louis vs New York or Omaha vs San Francisco. 45-50k means widely different things depending where in the country you go. You also can't just say "no New York jobs" as they line you up for interviews and the first client to say that they want you, you go. You find out that their culture doesn't fit your needs? Stuck there for two years. Can't afford to live in that area? Too bad have food stamps with low income housing.

The people assigned to help consultants are nice. They try to be understanding. But when you say that the simple fact that you don't feel like you can afford to survive they just respond that they wish they could help

Overall the company requires you to work 2 years under them unless the 90 day clause is met in which no jobs accepted you. The account managers are overall terrible at following-up and  keeping tabs about where an FDM consultant is located and negotiating salaries once their 2nd year is up. HR could be much more transparent about the pay structure and how your vacation days aren't really paid leave, rather they only pay the base pay when you take a day off. Despite having phone conversations periodically with the consultants, they do not communicate with the host employer about concerns the consultants have raised. The supposed training you get is just a crammed session of SQL (Oracle), UNIX, Financial Analysis, Excel VBA, and Business Administration training that is broken-up into 2 week intervals for each subject (PMO stream). 

To say the least, proceed with caution, know that when you are at a host company you are probably making significantly less than market value if you would have interviewed directly to the company. One pro they have is that they expose you to pretty high people in the organizations they send you to.

Pros:
1) Trainings are very beneficial. You will be exposed to materials that will help you in a long way (i.e. popular development frameworks, various profession development resources like PluralSight, Safaribooksonline, etc)

2) Most of the consultants are very friendly and encouraging towards each other.

3) Health insurance is solid. There's also 401k now.

Cons:
1) Compensation is way below market norm, but it's a compromise you make by having very great trainings upfront.

2) There's a chance that your consultant contract may terminate early with the client company due to various reasons that has nothing to do with your personal performance (i.e. budget, legal issues, etc). Sometimes they handle your transition from one client company to the next well, but other times not so much. 

3) Your experience here hinges on which account manager you ended up working with.

I find it quite funny after being a fresh grad student in CS. That they fired me based off of one presentation. Very sketchy management. Funny thing how I was the one who got fired first based off my presentation on the dumbest topic ever, my redid resume, and another tech writing when most my class were disabled vets who didn't know how to code, people who could barely speak, and people with no coding experience in their life. Loudest nonsense work environment I have ever been in. Like hello!!! Fake it to make here. Manager was very hostile and rude. For any real talent, you are wasting your time here, I promise you. Funny thing, I got a call from the main office in New York after they fired me offering me an interview thinking I was still in the program. But I will say the recruiters and teachers were quite personable and nice. Do I hear sketch? 

Con's:
Management, Cutthroat, Silly co-worker who have no idea what they are doing.
Pro:
Decent location

What is the best part of working at the company?
While the Academy was in operation, the instructors were focused on insuring that every trainee had the job skills to succeed at their client placement.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Unfortunately, due to market conditions, the US Academy instructors have been laid off.  FDM has "rebranded" itself to require prospective employees to pay for their IT training out of their own pockets.  Once hired by FDM, they may be directed to use the IT Library (created by Academy instructors who are now laid off), for "experiential learning".  

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
 It had been a great company to work for.  I think with this "rebranding", that will change.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
It analyst 3 salaries reported	$55,000 per year
Consultant 7 salaries reported	$51,571 per year
Software engineer 6 salaries reported	$59,167 per year
Direct support professional 1 salary reported	$23.94 per hour
Database specialist 1 salary reported	$83,550 per year

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