Don't do it unless you absolutely have to - Account Executive Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Oct 19, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent culture at a direct management and team level. Decision makers, VP and up are incompetent. Company car and gas (up to 4 year old Rav 4, no frills). Amex.

Cons

Long days (expect 50+ hours, home office one day/week), high expectations, brutal lay offs, business strategy changes with the wind. Account executive bonus is annual, so be prepared to live off of 70k for 11 months out of the year and is discretionary- not to be paid out if laid off and may reduce your unemployment benefits. Below industry norms and they won't mention it until 5 interviews and the offer has been extended. The in person door knocking sales style is obsolete for any other professional career path. They burn through account reps and treat them as disposable.

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Cengage Response
2y
At Cengage Group, we know the significant impact our employees have in powering our business, especially our sales teams. We value the work our teams do each day, and regularly monitor industry standards around wages to ensure we are providing fair and competitive compensation and benefit offerings. I’m sorry to hear that your experience with senior leadership did not live up to your expectations. We pride ourselves on transparency and candor, and as part of this, senior leaders and the executive team often discuss the rapid change that is taking place in education, and the ways in which we as a business must evolve to meet this need. This can sometimes mean making difficult decisions in restructuring teams that remove some roles, but also create new ones. We are committed to having a healthy and growing business. We do not take these decisions lightly and understand how they can create uncertainty. Thank you for sharing your feedback. I wish you the best in your future endeavors. Edwin Robles, SVP and GM of US Higher Ed & Canada

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

6
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