Maryland Department of the Environment FAQ

Pros

Great benefits for retirement and healthcare

Cons

Not much growth for salary

Pros

time off, sick, vacation, pension after 10 years

Cons

rigid, does not reward good work

Pros

Great benefits for retirement and healthcare

Cons

Not much growth for salary

Pros

Good management. great work life balance, feels like you are really doing good work

Cons

pay is low for engineers but good benefits and pension help

Pros

Good experience, benefits, and work-life balance. This is a great place to start out as a new grad, or making a career change. Your experience is largely based on how the department and manager you get hired under are, so make sure you like them in the interview and get a sense of who you'll be working with, some are great and some are bad. Some departments are totally overstaffed but have to make a hire to keep a position open (it's almost impossible to open a new position so if someone leaves they hire just to keep the position in case they are needed in the future) so they won't have any real work for you to do. Generally smaller divisions/department are better. You won't ever be expected to work more than 40 hours per week. The first few years you can move up classifications pretty quickly and as a result get decent pay increases, but after that you essentially just get annual cost-of-living adjustments and an occasional step increase but not much.

Cons

Pay is low and advancement opportunities are pretty limited. Some management are power-hungry people who don't have the skills to make it in the real world, or people who were good employees but were promoted just based on being there the longest.

Advice to Management

More competitive pay. Be more flexible about opening/closing positions based on actual need.