Pros
Great job for full-time students. - rent discount - capped hours per week - looks great on a resume - you learn good marketing and communication skills - you get an inside peek at what the housing market is like - you learn excellent organizational skills - you learn how to read and understand multiple different reports - super easy way to make friends
Cons
I started at ACC as a Community Assistant in 2015. For a whole two years, I never saw any reason to leave and was actually looking forward to growing my career with them. There were definitely parts of the job that I hated, but that comes with every job. The hours were good-- rarely conflicted with my schedule. I had an awesome GM and the people I worked with were great, too. However, around the time I was ready to graduate college, I started to notice things that made me want to leave. Flash forward to when I became a leasing manager, I started to see that corporate really didn't care about the opinions of their employees-- not even the ones that have been there for a long time and have the credibility to back up their statements. The property I started at is outdated, but nothing was ever "in the budget" to have renovated. Instead of investing in their properties, they run ridiculous leasing specials that only bring in people who disrespect the property and cause more issues in the long run. Then they wonder why people are leaving bad reviews and trying to escape their lease. The marketing calls I was a part of as a leasing manager were always about "why aren't these numbers being met from last year" or "what is your team doing wrong." It was never, "how can we help you be successful" "what do you think would help improve these numbers." Let me tell you, corporate visits most of their properties less than twice a year. They have no place to tell people at the property level how they should be run. ACC looks at leasing like a standardized test. They believe that what works for one property MUST work for another. I've worked in property management in three different states and can say that is far from true. On the topic of marketing calls, ACC keeps things very cut and dry when it comes to marketing. They aren't innovative and they aren't keeping up with the trends of student housing. NOR do they care to hear what you have to say about it. This is another reason they waste tons of money on promo that no one wants that ends up taking up at least 600 square feet of storage at some properties for MONTHS. I'm not kidding. At one property I was giving out promo that had been there for at least 3 years. But this is menial to the problems I have seen. They treat their best employees like crap. My GM was the hardest working woman you have ever met and treated our property like she owned it. She always cared about the residents and constantly did her best to be on good terms with all of them, even if they didn't deserve it. That would backfire on her sometimes, but she was willing to risk that. In turn, they gave her the worst employees-- one of which was formerly in prison. You might ask, "What do you mean they GAVE her the worst employees?" I mean, there are 4 properties in the area and they took all her good employees and sent them to the other properties, while sending in replacements that would disrespect her, lie to her, quit at the most inconvenient times, make her feel unsafe, etc. This is not the only property that has experienced issues like this, but going into detail about some of them would make it easier to identify me. Let's just say that they hold on to some of their employees due to threats to sue or because they don't feel like having to hire a new person. One of the properties I worked at had a maintenance supervisor that was ridiculously incompetent, but they held onto him because his home situation is not very good. Gotta feel bad for the dude, but the whole property takes the downfall for things like that. There have also been cases when two or three properties have had to share a bookkeeper. This puts a ridiculous amount of pressure and stress on the person who has to do that and creates issues you don't even want to be near. Additionally, ACC does not back up their managers at the property level. Let's say that a parent is calling to complain about something that is not guaranteed in the lease, or something that goes against the lease. Protocol is always to go by the lease, right? Well, once that parent calls corporate, you are pretty much counting down the hours before corporate calls you and says, "Oh yeah we just decided to give them what they want." Do you know what that makes managers look like? It makes them look like the bad guys who just wanted to say no, when really they were just following policies. If that policy would've been broken at property level by a manager, corporate would've punished them for it. Oh, and don't work here if you're looking for fair pay after you graduate college. Student housing (housing in general, really) is not a 9-5 job. It's an ALL THE TIME job. As an LM I made under $35,000. The average rate for an LM is typically at least $40,000. After I left one property, they wanted to offer the next LM $23,000. Yes, you read that right. That's less than they pay a senior CA. That is an insult to anyone who has a degree and you shouldn't even try to negotiate that if it is offered to you-- just walk away. If you're looking to move up in the company, be sure you sip the kool-aid. They will try to tell you that you aren't ready or that you need a little more experience, but that can't be true. I have seen people with near no experience in student housing make it to the corporate office. The office politics are very real here. In summation, ACC is a great place to be if you're trying to put yourself through college and live in a pretty nice place for a discount. But once you see what goes on "behind the curtains," it's not going to be as enticing.
