Pros
The pay is above normal and the benefits are awesome. Even though I was laid off this month due to a restructuring and I feel I was wrongly put aside, I STILL believe that Autotrader.com is a good company to work for. UNDERSTAND, I am talking about the Online arm of the company AutoTrader.com and NOT AutoTrader the magazine, they are owned by the same company (Cox Enterprises) but they are run completely separate.
- We had free soft drinks, tea, coffee, hot chocolate all the time
- Monthly chair massages
- Management would buy lunch on average of once a month
- Management would be generous with time off around the holidays
- Most people in my position were able to work from home a few times a week when they did not need to be in the office for meetings
- ALL sales people worked out of a home office except the inside sales staff.
- Sales people were treated as the focal point of the company, lavished with praise when needed BUT also had their feet held to the fire when they were not performing
- ATTENTION SALESPEOPLE - THIS IS NOT A Company to come and collect a paycheck!!! BUT if you are a true salesperson your will be well compensated for the work you do. They are switching models to a more service/consulting type sales and building a book of business over time as opposed to a hard closing sales that they used to be.
- They still have a PENSION plan, can you believe it in this day and age a company that still has a pension plan? It automatically kicks in fully company paid after 5 years with the company.
- Paid every two weeks and commissions for sales people were paid monthly
- 18 days off a year PLUS 9 paid holidays!!!! That is over 5 weeks off a year.
MOST of the people that complain about the company on here and other sites, I would guess, were not used to having their feet held to the fire when they did not get the job done.
Let me reiterate. I was laid off (none revenue generating position) and no longer work for the company but I would STILL recommend people to work for them, all in all it is a great company to work for. I just got in the way of some paper pusher in the corporate headquarters.
If you are a sales person AND you PERFORM you will have a long and fruitful career at AutoTrader.com.
Cons
My main downside was the micro management of a particular manager. MOST manager are not like that but this one needed to know where I was at all times. As I said most managers treat their employees with the respect they deserve, this one just couldn't get away from it.
