Decent pay for a job that requires little to no critical thinking.
Pros
Decent salary, great benefits, retirement program and cash profit sharing. The actual work is not hard. Anyone that can proficiently read, write and type can easily hold any of the office positions. No take-home work.
Cons
McMaster-Carr had one of the worst work environments I've ever been a part of. There are probably numerous reasons it's this way, but I think there 3 that really make it the way it is: 1. McMaster-Carr likes to continually cycle "management trainees" (or MT's). For numerous reasons, MT's come and go. There is a constant influx of new, young (fresh out of college) MT's. They tend to move on after a year or so. Since these MT's are fresh out of school, they have little to no job experience (but I'm sure they have nearly 4.0 GPA's). They certainly don't have any real management experience, and it shows. 2. McMaster-Carr has been in business for over 100 years. They have everything pretty much figured out, which is a good thing. This is what other businesses strive for. The problem is at this point, they just need to 'turn and burn' orders. The more, the better. Any non-management position within the company is a volume driven position. Your performance is basically graded on the volume and accuracy of the work you touch. If your work is 100% accurate, but you're not hitting the volume threshold these MT's have calculated, you'll hear about it, and if it continually happens, you'll be put on a performance plan. Conversely, if your volume is up there but you have 1 or more errors more than this arbitrary threshold, you'll hear about that too. And most of these errors are of the correspondence type (email, e.g. spelling mistakes). 3. If you are not hired into management, there is a 99% chance you will NOT have any opportunity to move up - only the opportunity to move laterally. These moves come out of the blue and without any pay increase. You may also have to adjust to a new schedule. I should also point out you will be doing the exact same thing day in and day out, similar to working in a factory. Little to no critical thinking is required, especially since there are templates for everything. And this is fine for some people, but if you have a creative mind and truly enjoy problem solving (pretty much all the qualities they list in their job postings), I would advise you steer clear. I'd like to add something about the interview process. I was not told how long the interview process would take. I came in well before lunch (around 10 am). I met with 5 different people, each of whom interviewed me. When one person was done with me, they said they would send in someone else. This happened 4 more times. I didn't get out of there until close to 3 pm. I was starving. And luckily, I didn't have a job that I had to get back to. I feel bad for those that do. They can certainly give interviewees a heads up about a potentially lengthly interview.
