Pros
• Lots of hardworking people • Often contribute to charitable causes • Like many of the canned responses on here say, yes, you technically do have the opportunity to make a lot of money
Cons
• Gross turnover rate. Reliant upon interns and fresh college grads to come in, do the dirty work for 3-9 months, burn out and quit/get fired. The people who do stay are the lucky few who hit a goldmine with a large contract at a company (hence the “opportunity to make a lot of money” posts) resulting in increased inbound requests from that company. • If you are transitioning from an intern to a full-time employee, you will be included in a draft (like the NFL or NBA). Based on your performance as an intern, you will be drafted into a division of the company and a specific team, many of which have wildly varying success rates and will either set you up for potential success or failure from day 1. You cannot changes teams after this. • You are paid with a salary, but are expected to show up early and work late for the first 9-12 months until you’ve “built your book of business”. This often means 10-11 hour days of cold calling, and with the current base salary, equals less than $20 an hour. Because you’re not paid hourly, overtime pay doesn’t exist. You are paid commission only when you close a deal, which may not happen until you’re a year into the job. • You are not allowed to build your call list between the hours of 8:30 am and 6 pm. Those are calling hours. If you want to build/update your call list, which is a required part of the job, you have to do that after 6 pm or on weekends. • There is no remote flexibility. Post-COVID, they implemented a new “policy” – to give you an idea of what that is, if you’d been with the company for less than a year, you got one day a MONTH where you could work remotely. They say they want employees in the office for the “company culture” but it’s because they want to monitor you. • Unnecessary/unhealthy competition among teammates due to lack of territories. Account managers within a single division are all fighting for the same companies to call, and companies are often assigned at random or due to favoritism. Sales is inherently competitive, but the lack of structure here produces a hostile environment. • Embarrassing lack of investment in employees. Entire groups share a single LinkedIn sales navigator account. Each team has a single Zoominfo account that only one person can be logged into at a time – now imagine you have a team of ten people who are not allowed to build their call list during the day and are scrambling to use the Zoominfo account at 6 pm so they can try to get home before 8 pm. • Unethical/questionable tactics regarding information gathering and contract negotiation. Consultants often forced to provide references long before a job offer exists, purely for contact info for new leads. Huge margins on the hourly rates – if you are a consultant and you are working through ALKU, know that you are getting ripped off. • Cold calling that borders on harassment. Managers at companies will often be called multiple time a day for weeks at a time – asking to be removed from the call list might temporarily stop calls, but when the next intern takes over, you’re back on the list. Cease and desist letters have been sent. • Bizarre and oppressive company culture. If you try to call out any of the items listed above, you are considered uncommitted to the company and will be gaslighted into thinking that you aren’t working hard enough. The general consensus is that if you don’t like it, you can get out. Oh, and the “Best Place to Work” awards are a sham – you’ll be pressured to fill out a survey every 6 months so they can put another plaque on the wall, but don’t even think about bringing up work-life balance to your manager.
