Pros
Overall Chevron is a well managed company with good management leading it forward through difficult times. With regards to the finance function, the company has a solid, mostly lean, and well functioning team. The company tends not to hire a lot and retains people over time expecting them to rise through the ranks. The environment is collegial, management structure tends to be flat, and people are overall treated well. The company has solid processes, strong ethics, and a tradition of good execution. Benefits and pay levels are competitive, although for Bay Area jobs people may find the incentive structure different from the prevailing trend in technology. For example, the company does not offer a stock option compensation plan, but CVX offers a company sponsored pension plan. The company has historically been a good place to work for finance professionals because of its tendency to hire small amounts of people and grow them from within. However this has in the past caused staffing shortages as people retire. This has not happened in the past 2 years, as the economy has contracted, but in the long run this is a reality for the company, creating opportunity for people willing to ride out the current stalemate in development opportunities.
Kontras
Because the company's profitability is very much dependent upon the vagaries of the oil price cycle, CVX cyclically goes through reviews of the appropriateness of staffing levels in the support functions. This is to ensure its cost structure stays competitive when revenues could fall significantly. Unfortunately, over time, this has resulted in some finance areas, such as accounting, being offshored. This takes away opportunity for finance staff to move around the company to acquire different types of relevant experience to grow in their positions and become competitive for top management jobs. Over time, because CVX hires and grows from within, people may find that some critical development areas to become as strong, competitive financial professional may no longer be available, even though they have patiently "waited their turn" in the professional development queue. Culturally, the company is clearly different from a tech company or a "new economy" company, which makes for a work environment where people are not aggressive and there is a lot of collaboration. However, this also means that at times the company at times moves very slowly and with a lot of inertia.