Vention Reviews

One week during October I was called into a meeting along with several peers; Sales volume was forecasted to remain low and we needed to reduce headcount which involved terminating some of my direct reports. This was the third mass layoff I was a part of during my time at Vention. The following week on Monday I was tasked with informing the people we were letting go. Afterwards I spent the rest of the afternoon talking to the remaining members of my team in an attempt boost morale. The following morning I was called into a surprise 15-minute meeting with HR and my boss during which I was informed I was also part of the layoffs. That's it. That's all. Vention had me fire members of my team only to fire me the next day. I will let you potential/current employee determine whether you are okay with working for a company that would do this to its employees. It's just one aspect that I feel is important and that you need to be aware of. If you are looking to join the sales team, it seems you will find 3 years of detailed reviews of what it's like to work there. Vention is a cool company, I loved my time there, I was a top performer, the colleagues I had were brilliant, and I wanted to spend many years there. I was let go in a cowardly and apathetic way. I felt completely betrayed. As a little bit of additional context; during my termination I was told twice that they had discussed alternate ways to let me go (i.e. have me be fired along with members of my team) but determined this was the best option. I guess they thought it would make me feel better to know that they considered treating me with fairness and respect but ultimately went another way.

The company has ambitious targets and the CEO claims ”we’re not building a potato shack,” but in reality the company is just a glorified aluminum exporter. Vention wants to be a name-brand for automation, but they’re trying to push products that are highly irrelevant. There’s a huge disconnect between what management think and what’s actually happening in the market. The sales organization is as toxic as an old-school office before employees got more rights in recent years. This is because there’s a major lack of trust. The commission structure is rigged. Quota always goes up in sales, that’s the way it is. However, Vention will give you an outrageous goal and pay you ZERO dollars of commission unless you hit a threshold near half. You’ll work all year to grow your book of business to start hitting the minimum threshold, then guess what? Your quota goes up. There are sales people that have been there for over 3 years and are struggling to make any commission. Management seem to have lost their confidence as well and have been changing direction more often than a leaf in the wind while expecting results immediately.