Overall- it's high stress, high workload with no support, and toxic management & work environment to boot.
Leadership is under-qualified, untrained, and promoted based on favoritism rather than merit/temperament, so the negative work environment and unsustainable practices are allowed to run rampant with little to no oversight.
There is NO support or delegation of duties unless you hit the top 5% of AEs, and then you gain access to SHARED admin assistants. Essentially, the more successful you are, the bigger your workload gets, and there is no support for mid-level AEs with massive workloads. It's a never ending cycle of work hard, get more work, struggle to maintain much less grow due to constantly increasing responsibilities, get tapped on the shoulder for not being able to handle the workload of 6 people, but also why aren't you growing as fast as possible? Wash, rinse, repeat.
So for the first 3-5 years (if you can survive it) you're responsible for the following roles that most companies split into separate full-time positions:
-Recruiting Coordinator
-Recruiter
-B2B Business Development Rep
-B2B Sales Rep
-Human Resources
-Contract Employee Manager
duties include but are not limited to:
-cold and warm outreach for recruiting contract workers and marketing into schools to obtain job orders
-cold marketing via email
-cold and warm outreach via mailers and cards
-daily job posting for openings that may or may not exist
-High target *outgoing* phone calls per day (recruiting only)
-minimum # phone screenings per week
-minimum # interview targets per week
-minimum # of signed contracts per week
-interview coordination
-full cycle recruitment
-Contractor and client onboarding
-full cycle temp employee management
-full cycle back end client management
-internal clerical/administrative duties
-external client meetings
-daily internal office meetings
-trainings- attending and leading
-UNPAID mentoring/training/supporting new hires while managing your own desk. (if you say no, you will be written off and then targeted for not participating)
-Aggressive, unrealistic & arbitrary KPIs, with no real basis within the market to quantify the numbers they ask for.
A revolving door of changing KPIs, Rules of Engagement/Division Rules/Rules of Protection/Territory can change on a whim, often with no warning or support to adjust.
Be warned: they will tell you that as you grow your book, the outreach metrics aren't required due to the increase of maintenance workload, but be careful if you choose to believe them- the second they don't like you, you will be pulled into a room and asked why you aren't hitting your target metrics regardless of how much business you're bringing in, and regardless of them directing you to focus on growing and maintaining your existing business instead of cold outreach. They will then use those same arbitrary outreach metrics they told you not to worry about to put you on a PIP and accuse you of underperforming.
Bottom line, you're responsible for maintaining the outreach metrics AND your book of business no matter what they tell you, and allowing the outreach to slip, even at the insistence and reassurance of your manager is a calculated risk all AEs are forced to take because it's simply too much work for one person. Which puts you at the mercy of a leadership team that values the ones that kiss up and play along with the bullying and mean spirited culture over actual productivity- because if they can push out the producers, they can then give their work to their friends, and the favorite few that drink the kool-aid and spew it for everyone to listen to.
Speaking of outrageous sales expectations & target goals- COVID money is gone from schools, which is what they used to inflate their rates for schools to maximize profit and still grossly underpay contractors, yet they refuse to back down and adjust to the new market. Not to mention all the schools that have the budget to contract are already claimed by veteran AEs. So the crumbs that are left over are like chum in the water - you're left fighting for scraps.
If you think internal turnover is abysmal, it's nothing compared to contract cancellations- so the little ground you gain is always in jeopardy, and you are held responsible for any lost business, and punished for it -regardless of context.
Good luck getting leadership support with any problems you may have, because they also have to run their own sales & recruitment business with no support in addition to managing a team- and yes, that does mean you can end up competing for business with your own manager for candidates and clients. It's as uncomfortable as you'd think it would be. The conflict of interest alone is enough to leave everyone feeling unsafe and on guard, all the time.
Additionally, is a YOUNG company, with all offices prioritizing hiring and promoting new grads. They push to hire new grads so they can keep salaries low, and promote from within. That's a good thing on paper, but the result is most team leads and managers are VERY young. For most it's their first salaried job out of college and they receive little to no leadership training, so they are just as blind as you are. (Seriously, most managers and division directors ranging in age from 23-30, but don't let that fool you, the few 35+ aged leaders act just as unprofessionally as the new grads) The few good managers they accidentally promote end up burnt out and exhausted from trying to support and protect their team from the mistreatment of upper leadership, and end up stepping down as a refusal to contribute to the toxic leadership values, or pushed out of the company all together.
Others have touched on favoritism and expectations changing from person to person depending on your personal favor with leaders, which is also accurate based on my experience with the company.
If you can get "in" with upper management, they'll roll out the red carpet, hand you business, ignore your slow seasons, and when new hires quit or are fired for "underproducing" you'll inherit their headcount, so your desk can still appear to be growing, even when it's not.
"Earned Remote Work" is an absolute joke, others that have left reviews have covered why, and they're all accurate. Same with work life balance, expected communication monitoring on PTO, etc.
Lastly, a warning to all current and future employees:
Accommodations and support/protection for ADA & minority protected individuals is only provided if you enlist HR to enforce it and know your rights so you can block them from denying you (meaning if you want any support at all go through HR in writing, and even then, be prepared to fight for it) which would be fine - but know that if you do you will be punished directly and indirectly for asking for the accommodations/protections you're legally entitled to. Request accommodations at your own risk; and prepare to become a direct target from that point forward.
Make no mistake- this company staffs special education departments and trains recruiters, they know employment & accessibility law and use technicalities and intimidation like a battering ram to avoid providing legally required protections and accommodations to eligible employees.
They chronically avoid communication in writing, ambush performance review meetings, often utilizing an overwhelming approach of 2 to 3 leaders on 1 employee giving them no time to prepare or know it is happening- bringing in your entire line of leadership to gaslight you into backing out of pursuing accommodations/support, and often threatening PIPs, piling on grunt work, or taking away any earned perks as a result of needing any accommodations. "Well if you're struggling with anything, I don't see how accommodations will help- this should be easy. Maybe we need to put a metric plan in place to go back to basics and make sure you can handle your job as is." They'll refuse to provide clear written expectations, instructions and job descriptions both to allow for consistent work load increases and sporadic objective changes week to week but also to avoid any responsibility in accommodation & support; making it difficult for employees to gain specific accommodation approval or duty modifications due to not having written responsibilities they can reference when requesting them.
The few special needs & disabled employees that do choose to access the accommodations they are entitled to, often end up targets, ostracized from team & group settings, and once they know your areas of support, leadership will specifically target those as weak areas to bury you in grunt work and make your work life miserable and painful.
HR will also call you and try to pressure you into quitting as a result of asking for legally protected accommodations, and insinuate that needing them at all means that you can't do your job, and wouldn't it be better in the long run to just leave instead, if it's so hard? They will also threaten you for requesting accommodations, and tell you that "the work will only get harder, expectations will only get steeper, stress loads & work loads will only get more intense" if you stay and don't quit. All done by phone, of course, to avoid liability.
Bottom line- if you need health insurance and decent base pay while you look a more sustainable long term position that works for you, or you're a new grad that needs office experience for your resume- this will fit the bill- just understand you are just as expendable and disposable and if you aren't "in" with the right people- like it or not, you'll be hung out to dry and blamed for the mistreatment they give you.
Enter with an exit strategy in mind, or else you'll drown.
