Working at Cerner Corp. — Reviews by Employees

Basically, Cerner is a good place to break into the electronic medical record field. Since Cerner is the biggest player in this area, it's good to have experience with Millennium. That said, I wouldn't suggest staying with the company past 2 years. They promise many things during your orientation, and actually lie about how many hrs. you are expected to work when they interview you. At least that was the case with me. I was told that I'd be working 40 hrs., and at times may need to work a little more. Once I was on my team, I was told that I would have to work a minimum of 44 hrs., and this is actually low compared to other teams within the company. The hrs. wouldn't bother me if they didn't tack on more and more as your career advances, and I don't mean just a little. The amount of hrs. worked drastically increases the longer you're there. Goals are also impossible to reach unless you work these hrs., as time goes on. Keep in mind, this company is very goal oriented and your reviews are based on meeting those goals and how well you did compared to others in your organization. A bell curve is used during the review process. So, in theory, if everyone meets their goals, the bottom 10 percent or so of those people that met their goals receives a "needs improvement" on their review because you're compared to everyone else, and someone has to receive a "needs improvement". Luckily, in reality, everyone doesn't meet their goals. I'm just saying that a bell curve comparison to everyone else isn't really fair in my opinion. How well you do also depends on how well the most knowledgeable associates on your team like you and are willing to help you. Basically, you'll need to kiss up (network) to these people and then they'll help you, and unless you're already a wiz at this type of thing, you will need help. Bring candy and cookies often. Pay was good, at least from my perspective. Respect depends on who you're working with and how quickly you drink the kool aid. Job security depends upon the same. Give your life to Cerner and you'll do fine. Location depends upon what campus you're at. I was at World Headquarters, which was an island oasis right smack in the middle of a run down industrial area. Co-worker competence was pretty good. You would come across some people who didn't appear to know their job, but 9 times out of 10 they were new, and Cerner tends to ram a bunch of online training sessions and classes at you and then throw you into your job, which in reality requires someone to truly mentor you. Most people on these teams don't have time to sit with you as a mentor, so what happens is you're shadowing someone for a couple of weeks and you're expected to pick everything up in your shadow session. So, you're basically thrown in the pool and have to either sink or swim. If you swim, believe me, this will get you ready for almost any job you go to. It's wrong, but there is actually some twisted logic to it. It burns people out quick though. The key to swimming is what I mentioned above about kissing the arse of the most knowledgeable associates on the team, not necessarily your mentor. Anyway, this is why you end up talking to people that seem incompentent. Lastly, for me the campus was awesome, except for the surrounding area. In conclusion, only use this company for training. If you want a career with Cerner, be prepared to be single, with no real life other than this company.

Working for Cerner is okay if you don't mind not having a life outside of work. Who ever heard of such a thing? The pay is okay but just reverberating everthing else said on this board, work/life balance is absolutely the worst. They give you a leash, or cellphone, if you prefer, so that they can call you at any hour they want to. And they do. Forget about a regular sleep pattern. That cellphone is going to be the only thing your sleeping next to, because marraiges will end, and forget about meeting new people - you'll be working instead. You'll probably get fat and have a heart attack too, the jobs are stressful. They're great at giving out responsibilty, but forget about a pat on the back if you rock the pants off of it - unless you ascribe to the standard suck-up to your boss philosophy, then maybe. And raises are laughable at best - get a great starting salary because you'll be *fighting* for CPI raises the rest of your career. I'm consistently amazed by how much work you can put in, how much you give to your career, and how little you get out of it. Save the company millions by finding a TCO fix? Here's a little crappy star you can put on your desk. Make the company millions additional in sales and new offerings? Here's your below cost of living raise...yeah, may be a job in a tough economy - I get that. But I'm sure they'll have plenty of vacancies to fill once the economy does turn around. Please save yourselves years of frustration and stress...go somewhere else, even if the pay is a bit lower to start with. That is, unless you like working extra hard so your execs can swim in their pools of bonus money. The choice is yours.

Absolutely worst company to work for.
However, if you are patient and can survive a year or 2 then get a consulting job, then it pays off.
You are literally their slave when you are hired.
Working 50-60 hours a week was not enough. I was considered in a RED ZONE for working this much.
I needed to put in more hours to be in the GREEN ZONE. Though it is not pusblished policy, but every week with my manager, I was informed that I needed more hours.
My wife literally got to the point of asking for divorce because of the way our life was while working there.
Human Resources at cerner is the biggest joke of all time. Useless and not even worth wasting your time.
Executives can do what they want and you cannot even object.
Extremely terrible company.
Once again, if you are able to sacrifice a year (make sure you are not in risk of heart attack or killing yourself) then it is ok to work for Cerner and then search for work somewhere else (hospital or or some health system).

I have recently shifted to another job from Cerner India and want to share my experience working in this company. Note that I feel that Cerner is very different from "Cerner India". I love "Cerner" but hate "Cerner India".
Pros:
1) If you are a fresher, you would be trained well and you get to gain a good exposure to industry practices.
2) Pay for freshers is good
3) Job security - You need to slap your manager to get fired.. that is for a month or so periodically.
3) If you can survive in Cerner for 2 years without burning out, you can survive in most of the world deserts, north, south poles and enjoy working in any of the other IT companies.
Cons:
1) You can forget about the term "life" for a while. No one knows what work-life balance is in this company.
2) You get to meet defective human beings (museum specimens) called "Software Architects" which I feel you would have no chance of coming across any where in the world. These specimens/entities are direct descendants of the "pointy haired boss from Dilbert comics". They are extremely incompetent (technically, socially) and only exist to make the associates work for 15 hours a day.
3) Regardless of how much training you receive here, your technical, coding skills will evaporate because the work is mostly clerical (some of it is like data entry) regardless of what your title is.
4) As soon as the specimens/entities(see point 2) above you feel you are becoming too important for the team, they would bring in a few dummies and ask you to train them (in case you try to leave).
5) There would be constant pressure to increase the output of the associate (regardless of whether the output is already high or not).

I feel that Cerner has no respect for their workers, who of course work their tails off with much more than 40 hours per week. Managers are supposed to be cool, and someone you feel comfortable talking to about situations in the workplace... yeah good luck with finding that here at Cerner. I've always had a boss where I felt comfortably hanging out with, nope the lack of respect, kindness and sincerity is unheard of with Cerner Managers. Workers concerns and ideas mean nothing.
I thought working in a large company would give me a lot of opportunities in the business world, well I was wrong. I would never recommend anyone to work at this company, for I know I will be leaving for bigger and better opportunities very soon!!!

PAY: It depends on the level of experience you have. Cerner loves to hire new college students at $30-35K. With experience, I was able to get more than $40K. It sound like a good salary when I was hired but if you do the numbers, it sucks. I averaged 55 hours of chargeable time plus 10 hours of non-chargeable time (meetings, webinars, training, etc.) and 5-10 hours of travel. I was making $11-12 an hour. I made a few extra dollars a week hording my per diem.

RESPECT: The secret of earning respect is giving respect to your managers and coworkers no matter how incompetent they are. You also can also earn respect if you sleep with someone above your pay grade.

BENEFITS: I miss their benefits. I miss the Employee Stock Purchase Program the most. Their health care benefits are average for a company their size. if you work in KC, there are plenty of on campus benefits (gym, cafeteria, etc.). You are also near North Kansas City Hospital in case you have a heart attack.
If you are single or married, there is the poon benefit.

JOB SECURITY: When I was there, I was told that Cerner never laid anyone off. That is bs. If you put in the chargeable hours, you will have a secure position. If you leave your individuality at the door, you can also maintain a position with Cerner.

WORK/LIFE BALANCE: It depends on the job. I was remote so WLB was nonexistent. I worked on site Monday-Thursday and was back home or working in the office in KC. I was also on call on the weekends, when necessary. If you are single and end up in a cool town, the balance of getting loaded every night can help. If you are married and take a job at Cerner, start looking for a divorce lawyer unless your mate travels also. That is the nature of the business.
It is not a kid friendly company because you never see them.

CAREER GROWTH: If you know how log chargeable hours that are higher than you coworkers and you are more incompetent that your supervisors, you should do well. Making your supervisor feel sexy will also help.

LOCATION: Do not take a remote position if you live in KC. You will not be allowed to work from home on Fridays. You will have to be in the office for the entire day.

CO-WORKER COMPETENCE: It is a flip of the coin. The rule for me is if I needed to know the correct answer, ask the person who is not attractive. The uglier the better.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: It is clean. You have what you need to work.

SUMMARY: I worked at Cerner 7 years ago. I am sure things have changed. I am now a consultant that works with Cerner and Epic clients. Working at Cerner for 2 years has paid many dividends for me. If you take a job with Cerner, have your 2-5 year outcome in mind. Do you want to make a career with Cerner, are you going to go into consulting, or will you use the experience to land a job somewhere else.

I didn't use any of the ratings since they don't really mean much. I'd like to take a different, more comical look into Cerner. Let's begin:

First off, I'd like to point out that while Neal ssspendsss more time in tanning booth than working on his ssspeechesss he'sss a pretty good bussssinesss man. You don't build a company like that while being incompetent. That doesn't mean I have to like the guy though.

The Velocity program; good idea, terrible execution. If they would just be upfront with the incoming Velocity participants it wouldn't be such a farce. Just tell us that you're keeping us in training until you can use us to fill attrition. They spew all this tripe about weighing your strengths and weaknesses during training to help place you in a position that suits your abilities. All they do is wait until someone gets fired or quits and then they place you in that vacated cube. At least if they told you that you wouldn't be so disillusioned for five weeks when your T-cells finally expel the last of the brainwashing fluid they shovel down your throat at Riverport.

I mean, if they are actually weighing your strengths and weaknesses then how do they explain how one Velocity consultant gets placed in a phone support job and another becomes the personal assistant to the number four guy in the company? Is there a checklist for strengths that accounts for blonde hair and looks good in Forever 21 jeans? Oh well, even if she didn't get that job on merit alone she'll still be fine. I mean, she might sleep with the right guy and become Director of the First Hand Foundation...

Anyone seen the Cerner 20th Anniversary book? There's a picture of Don Vito in there when he was about 3 first graders skinnier. Guess that's what being on the Cabinet DL will do to your waistline.

Speaking of waistlines, how about that HR Department? That's kind of a facetious statement considering they don't really exist. There's a reason that the HR Org is included in each layoff. A lot of it is just incompetence, but it's partly because they just bring in family and friends to work there. Basically they create positions because they know/related to someone who is "hurting for a job in this economy". Qualifications? Who needs 'em anyways!?! Just send out a jeans day email! That will shut them up.

That's actually the only thing I've ever received from the HR Department; a jean's day email every 4 months. It's pretty disconcerting that being able to wear jeans once every 120 days is considered the greatest reprieve they can offer to us.

HR - "The natives are growing restless. A mutiny is afoot. The sock hop at Connections didn't work since everyone that came is already married to a Cerner person anyways! What ever will we do!?!?.....I know....jeans day." "BRILLIANT!!! EXCELSIOR!"

My Outlook Inbox - "Oh. My. God.....a jeans day. I wish it was jeans day right now so I could go home and change into them because the excitement of being allowed to wear denim has caused me to mess my Cerner standard dress khakis."

People always complain about not getting to see their families because Cerner works them too hard. I'm not sure if I believe that statement considering about half of the company is either blood related, married, or at least sleeping with each other. I mean, just enjoy a cool mocha latte at Mr. Illig's own Cliff's Cafe that is, point proven, until recently run by Neal's daughter, a blood relative. Cerner wants you to be with your family, there's no doubt about that. They just don't like you marrying outside the company. People were almost shocked when I told them my significant other didn't also work at Cerner. They told me I'd have to get to a Beer Friday as fast as I could to at least find someone at Cerner to cheat on her with!

You know what's funny? They block this site specifically while you are on campus. It doesn't fall under any of the genre restrictions like sexual content or anything. They just block it specifically. I'm assuming Townsend (Vito) made that call.

Just as a side note, people make up their hours on their time sheets. It's actually pretty sad considering that's part of the equation during review period on who gets raises. It's atrocious what people record as 'work done'. People will log work hours when they open their laptop on Sunday to change their Twitter feed to "Transforming Healthcare per my direct report so that I can escalate the issue of the fire drill and create a good show by killing a snake. Better touch base with the other associates. Remember to bring your devices!"

Either way, I'm so happy that when someone asks me at the bar if I work for Cerner too I can say, "No. Never have."

Work there if you want to meet some of the most awful human beings and then get married to one of them though. Then you can go around telling people you work for Cerner and wait for them to say, "Oh yeah? That's a great place to work," and then just reply, "Yeah, that's what I hear."

Don't do this to yourself. This is a company full of middle 'managers' who ride of the back of their underlings - sometimes referred to as associates. Salary is ordinary, benefits are so complex that it's hard to figure if they are paying you correctly or not. If you are a thirty something attractive man with a wife and no life, this is the company for you.

Don't do this to yourself. This is a company full of middle 'managers' who ride of the back of their underlings - sometimes referred to as associates. Salary is ordinary, benefits are so complex that it's hard to figure if they are paying you correctly or not. If you are a thirty something attractive man with a wife and no life, this is the company for you.

I will be a high school intern with cerner this summer. The pay is excellent: over $16 an hour.. I was wondering how orientation is, and will I have to be working long hours?