Pros
Before eviscerating every facet of the company in my “cons” section, I will at least attempt to put forth some benefits of working here: Working at Costar, especially in research, customer service, or collections, has a relatively low barrier to entry. If you have a college degree, speak functional english, and have a pulse, you can get a job here. It is an ideal environment for recent graduates to gain corporate experience or early commercial real estate experience prior to moving onto better roles. I advise staying no more than 6 months, partially because lingering here dooms yourself to daily frustration, but also because the skill-set acquired here is not all that marketable beyond other entry level jobs. The biggest upside I have found to Costar is the low stress environment and flexibility. I will cover some of the existential stresses later in my review, but if you are seeking a stable income with low demand, this can be ideal. The metrics, ultimately, are not challenging to meet if time is managed properly. You also build a sort of resilience to the tedium of cold calling and narrow mindedness of management that prepares you, for young graduates at least, for the status quo of old-school corporate America. I’ll pause here to remind you this is a pro of working here. Costar, due to the nature of the work and the structure of the work day, also allows you to schedule vacation or take a sick day at anytime you please. No project is ever so demanding that you must work from X to Y day. Unfortunately, this lack of importance also leads to a sense of professional ennui, since you largely function as a cog in what feels like a dysfunctional Rube Goldberg machine. I wish I had more pros to describe but unfortunately the preponderance of downsides must be addressed, and I am too eager for my long awaited catharsis by writing this review.
Cons
In David Foster Wallace’s infamous “This Is Water” commencement address, he notes that “there is actually no such thing as atheism...everybody worships.” For Christianity it is Jesus and the trinity, for Scientology it is Tom Cruise, and for Costar, it is calls. Calls-calls-calls-calls! Upper management displays such a fervor for calling, irrespective of its utility, that every problem, no matter what the quagmire, can be resolved by drumming up an army of researchers to dial the bejesus out of it. Perhaps, though, I should provide some context: Costar, among other things, provides a platform for CRE professionals to pay an exorbitant monthly fee to list their lease and sale listings, research new properties, and run market analyses. The crux of a research job at Costar is to call clients and other CRE professionals as often as possible to gather, validate, or verify information already in the database, then, explain to said clients why you are calling them when they pay you to house and accurately display such information. Management claims that clients want researchers involved to manage their listings, but the cacophony of irked clients I speak with proves otherwise. Most clients, in my experience, use the software purely to generate leads. The data is too unreliable to use for due diligence in any deal. Costar practices a zealous worship of internal metrics that ultimately serve no practical purpose toward improving wellbeing or performance for employees, or the quality of its products. At first this philosophy is just a nuisance, but as the days drag on, participating in such a convoluted and ultimately useless practice wears down on your spirit. Internally, the call metrics are used by management to pat themselves on the back for a “job well done” while other glaring problems that could have real impact on stakeholder wellbeing are brushed under the rug. There is constant feedback from clients to improve the accuracy of the data, yet it's impossible when research metrics are framed around the ability to call and update listings, irrespective of the quality of the data being updated. There is call-focused cabal within upper management that dictates the fixation on calling to all the lower management trees. It's a massive system of coerced stupidity that only stands to benefit a few higher-ups in a quarterly earnings call. Costar is an environment where mediocrity is the norm and putting forth any effort to optimize processes is shrugged off with an air of dissuasive nonchalance. Plenty of bright and talented employees quickly become jaded to the rigid business and management structures, and the inorganic work environment becomes suffocating. Any advice or ideas for change and improvement are routinely shot down- to the degree that its a joke among employees. Costar’s best bet for improving employee well being, client satisfaction, and overall data quality, would be to supplant the call-metrics with valuable research projects to enhance data and better respond to client’s frustrations. Costar is by far the most litigious company I’ve worked for or heard of- to the degree that it puts Donald Trump’s legal history to shame. While the Excelligent investigation made headlines, there are scores of other suits and investigations that don’t bubble up to the outer world. Costar contracts are designed to limit the opportunity for clients to unsubscribe and maximize the ability for Costar to pursue legal action. The sales team emboldens this shady effort by deliberately misdirecting and mis-marketing products to sow as much confusion as possible. This confusion also spills into the realm of customer service: one routinely receives calls from clients trying to rectify simple errors with their accounts- missing log-on information, inaccurate subscription packages, removing old users- but research has no sway over these issues, and we have no choice but to toss them into the maw of the sales and customer service teams. While these practices may not directly affect my day-to-day, my association with a company that endorses such behavior feels like a slow-dripping poisonous thorn in my side. I could go on, but I’m sure at this point I am straining the average attention span for a Glassdoor review. I can only hope this review dissuades those looking to working here, or at the very least, sheds some insight into what to expect.
