Gartner reviews

Senior and middle management work hard to keep their direct reports from knowing the truth. Don’t fall for the fun-loving act with the Nerf guns and the beach days...it’s a facade used to cover up all the problems that are stewing beneath the surface. This isn't a happy place to work right now. Gartner is growing its sales force faster than the market demand can support. The SMB sales channel has aggressive hiring goals and with each new hire, the existing sales territories are shrinking. Quotas are not being adjusted to compensate for the lack of opportunity, so unless you’re one of the lucky few with an awesome territory, you are set up to fail. Management isn’t admitting that the bubble has burst and has instead resorted to using fear tactics to motivate its sales force. It’s not working. Employee morale is grim. Gartner loves talking about their “exceptional opportunities” and their fast track to promotion. This is true for *some* people but more often than not, this is simply smoke and mirrors. They sell you on upward mobility, but in reality, it’s only distraction to keep you from exploring bigger and better opportunities outside of Gartner. Don’t fall into that trap. You will find that the vast majority of the AEs promoted to middle management are not ready to manage a team of their peers. They will micromanage (aka “coach”) you and babysit you until you meet every little tedious and time wasting metric they’ve devised. Also, middle management can and will lobby to get you fired if they don’t like you. If you take this role, have an exit strategy. Don’t wait until you’re miserable to start looking for another job. Quit while you’re ahead. Last thing: to demonstrate my point on the culture of deceit, sort all these Glassdoor reviews by date. After each mediocre/poor review, a 4 or 5 star review will magically post a couple days later. Just think about that.

Gartner pays sales people a pro-rated commission rate until a certain percentage of variable comp is reached. This is always a surprise to every new hire, and depending on when your portfolio's existing business renews, you could have small commissions until Q3/Q4. Leadership is all born from within Gartner, so their vision is very narrowed of how to manage a healthy sales organization. The culture has continued to decline over past year, and the sales management approach is intense micro-management of your every client email and presentations. If you are a sales person early in their career, this type of coaching may benefit you to cut your teeth. It's a great product but their research is only strong in specific areas. The product marketing team has made it very difficult to sell higher-priced products that clients would truly value and be easier to retain business. Their product model is "group membership" removing ability for clients to buy just one research license. Clients have grown frustrated. Gartner leadership is all about their brand, and not their people. People are extremely dispensable, and the churn for sales, delivery teams and HR is very high globally.