CARFAX Reviews

Pros

- Admirable senior leadership and executive team - Amazing Playbook that not only outlines our culture but lives and breathes it - Upcoming office move to new fresh space - Thankful for how the organization has handled the global pandemic - Competitive pay and perks!

Cons

- None to date and based on reviews and feedback from tenured employees and people managers, this positive feeling doesn't diminish with tenure!

Pros

The culture of this company is outstanding. They respect their employees, they make coming to work fun, and they empower and trust their developers. Free Friday lunches, two 20 minute breaks, and an hour and 20 minutes for lunch are unheard of anywhere else in London. Oh yeah, all those breaks are paid too (so you really only work for six hours per day). Friday afternoon (after that delicious free lunch) is for personal/professional development that can be spent learning anything of your choosing. Then you top all that off with monthly celebrations of new employees, after-work company-paid events (like board game night!), parking reimbursement, an all expenses paid orientation trip to HQ in Virginia, and a culture of helping each other out whenever you can. It really doesn't get better than this.

Cons

I get asked this constantly in interviews and am hard pressed to find anything truly bad about the company. The only things myself and my colleagues have been able to come up with are superfluous at best, such as: there's so much free food it's hard not to eat it all, talking to anybody about your job will sound like you're bragging (because it's really that awesome), and a job this good will ultimately ruin any future jobs you will have.

Pros

CARFAX was a fantastic place to work for 6+ years. I have never been at a company where every single employee is treated like a critical member of the team from the top down. And "top down" is a loose term as it's a flat organization where you'll typically only have to answer to your direct boss. Richard Raines has a way of getting the most out of his employees without putting negative pressure on them. Instead, every employee is given a chance to vote on a yearly basis what is important to the them and the company. This simple but vital process really helps push the company towards a common team goal. The "team" and "one goal" concept is a big part of what makes CARFAX successful and such great place to work. One of the first things you'll see if you take a position here are the "gears" that make the company run. It might seem cheesy at first, but once you get an understanding of how CARFAX works, it really helps illustrate the importance of everyone's role. Like any great organization, CARFAX will give you more than enough resources and surround you with enough smart and talented people to be successful. But it's up to you to make it happen. If you're not comfortable with lofty goals and being able to quickly pivot your focus when needed, this is not the company for you. The vacation time is generous (and quite frankly way more than you'll ever need or use), the compensation is on the plus side of fair and the annual Employee Appreciation Party is a great event. There is also a stock plan with the parent company IHS that is very favorable, as is the 401K match. If you're based out of the corporate office in Centreville, there are also free lunches, clinics and tons of company sponsored events. And people actually participate which is not always the case at a lot of companies. Overall, the people is what makes CARFAX such a great company. But it certainly helps that it's such a strong (and recognizable) product/brand. You will never have to explain to a customer what CARFAX is. You might correct them on confusion between CARFAX and Carmax but that's about it. Think of CARFAX as the Amazon of the vehicle data world. On the surface it seems like they do one thing. But when you dig deeper into the company, there are silos all over the place creating new markets and revenue opportunities. There is no company in the industry that can come close to that.

Cons

- There is an unfortunate byproduct of a successful but flat organization, and that is you'll eventually run out of ways to promote or compensate your A-players. Because it's such a fun place to work, a lot of people will gladly stay at CARFAX even though they could be earning 10-25% more somewhere else. But I've also seen a lot of talented people voluntarily leave positions at CARFAX when they were top performers on their team. I'm not necessarily saying exceptions need to be made, but there should be more of a consistent "at goal" number. No one likes having a good year and finding out they would've earned much more 2 years ago. - The parent company of CARFAX is IHS and while it's largely insulated from them, there are some trickle down policies that have made CARFAX seem like less of a private company and more of a corporate arm. I'm not talking about yearly SOX or harassment training which comes with any public company, but the healthcare plan has significantly declined over the years. Over 6 years the same level of coverage went up 120%. The other benefits stayed great, but health care coverage consistently went up.