Center Sales Manager for 3 years.
Pros
I see a lot of promoting from within. I was made Manager after only 4 months. My DDO started as a CSR, etc. Uncapped bonus potential. I once had an extra $2500 and then an extra $3000 on my paycheck. Pays well above minimum wage. Could be a good way to get your foot in the door of a career in finance. The amount expected of you gives you a really good looking resume if you stay a couple years and pay your dues. I MIGHT not have the job I have now if not for the things I learned at Advance America. You wear many hats, which means there is always something to do, which I love. You are never watching the clock. In fact you will often feel there's not enough time in a day to get everything done that is required of you because there isn't! They do work with customers to pay back bad debt, which is better than most of their competitors do. I like sales and marketing, and there is a lot of that with this company. They have shred bins, and "Shredit" recycles.
Cons
READ THIS BEFORE ACCEPTING THEIR OFFER!!! Their motto is, "loan it like it's not yours, and collect it like it is". And if you can't collect it because of many, many reasons not in your control, they write you up, and make you work insane hours to try and collect. People close their accounts and change their phone numbers, and Advance America does nothing about it except yell at the employees to do better, without offering help, or feedback on how to do better. Ridiculous expectations for the pay they offer. If you look at the job expectations on there website for a CSM, and multiply that by 100, you may have a better idea of what's expected. The pay IS NOT competitive like they claim. I changed jobs, and now make double my salary for the same position, and it's a lot less stress. There is no work/home life balance. Hours are long, a lot of late nights, especially when forced to do everything alone, and they expect you to go in an hour early and stay an hour late if they feel your collections could be better. I lost 5 out of 6 vacations I was supposed to take because they can't keep anyone staffed. I was required to run a 4 person center, by myself, and still do everything required of managers. They hound you about collections, yet do NOTHING themselves to collect on bad debt. I was given two weeks computer training, an hour away without mileage compensation, and then sent to a center that had one person working it with the same amount of training 3 weeks prior. The training is supposed to be 8 weeks! Then WE are the ones written up because we didn't know the proper way to do something. When we asked how to do something, they would tell us to go look it up in policy. That was often times not helpful because not every situation can be listed in there. You will feel overwhelmed, and highly unprepared when you get to your center. The amount of reports you do, the amount of paperwork you print daily and the amount of paper we waste is insane. The trees could probably house ever single person in the world. Be prepared to use recycled sandpaper for toilet paper. Upper management contradicts each other. So you never really know what you're supposed to do. I have to attend trial later this month. Management knew this for over a year. I had to quit, so that I could attend trial because they claimed they had no one to cover me. I guess they'll be able to find coverage now, or close the center! You are required to do quarterly events. This is not so much a con except the fact that you are still required to do them regardless of how shortstaffed you are. They want you to go out into the community and get other businesses involved, but when you're the only person working at Center, when are you supposed to leave? You will always feel overwhelmed and behind. You have to find time to do almost 600 calls in one day, everyday! On TOP of all the other demands!