Pros
I have worked for Altria since I was a sales intern following my junior year of college and feel that I have received second to none sales training throughout my career. The benefits are good (used to be great) and the pay is good (not great). Depending on where you work and who you work for, sales jobs are flexible and there is good work/life balance. The brand portfolio is strong, so you're generally operating as the #1 company (with the exception of the cigar category). There are a lot of great people here and for sales roles they only promote from within.
Cons
Senior management seems to be very heavily dominated by a heterogeneous group of men with giant egos. Although there are a few true leaders in the bunch, it seems like the men (and I say men because there are pathetically few women in leadership roles here) they have advanced in recent years were selected for their ability to agree with everyone else in senior management but are lacking in intelligence or true leadership skills. The advancement process is ridiculous (which is likely why there are so few women in positions of leadership). If you are unwilling or unable to move wherever the company wants, whenever they want you to, you aren't even considered for advancement. The senior team all like to brag that they've lived in 12 different states in 7 years, but it's not a lifestyle that's conducive to having a stable home life or a family (although I doubt they're interested in advancing people that want this anyway). They really just want to be able to move sales employees around like chess pieces, wherever it's convenient for them. There have been a lot of growing pains in the last few years with the acquisition of US Smokeless and John Middleton, and senior management has been extremely slow to react. For the last year and a half, my direct reports have been constantly bombarded with focus groups and surveys regarding things that get in the way of doing their jobs, but nothing has changed. It's almost become a joke to them because they just keep repeating the same things over and over and giving suggestions (which senior management is so enthusiastic about), but we can't understand why we're STILL talking about it and nothing has been done.
