Pros
*** I can only speak for the Capital Sales side of the business as that is where I am positioned. Quick Points: - Hands-off management as long as you show improvement, results, and effort. - Good pay for college grads, GREAT opportunity to learn and grow. - Despite what a few others have said I have experienced lots of tolerance for my weaker abilities that need development. - You will see results if you use the resources given to you wisely. You will see better results if you enjoy traveling, people, and working hard to achieve results. Please take my last point extra seriously. This job is not for those who want a standard 9-5. You are basically running a business with the backing of a giant corporation. You will be given a tremendous amount of responsibility right out of college. It will take time to learn to balance this with your life and extracurricular activities. My first two months post-training was a serious grind, but I loved it. FULL REVIEW ------------------ A truly amazing opportunity to jumpstart your career in Sales. You are not a "glorified order-taker" as with many pure sales jobs. You are an "Account Manager" in the sense that you are responsible for PRE and POST acquisition of your product. You must market, book demos, sell products...THEN train and support those same customers. Some people may not like this; however, I absolutely love the added responsibility as you will experience equitable growth. Don't worry - you have an entire tech team to back you up for the extra complicated stuff. Your tech team are the ones who train you in Chicago, so you actually develop a real relationship with these individuals. I can't speak for other departments, but my "Technical Marketing Group" (TMG) is fantastic. KEYENCE only hires from within, meaning they are mostly hiring younger college graduates with the expectation to grow these individuals internally. You will not start in Inside Sales - you will be thrown into the fire and expected to fail but LEARN and improve. I have experienced a great deal of tolerance for some of my weaker skills and have worked 1on1 with my manager to discuss real plans for improvement.
Cons
As others have said, this job is too focused on metrics; however, I have heard this becomes slightly less pertinent as you progress (I am still new). If I book out a week in half the amount of "phone time" as my colleague due to better phone skills and/or better prospecting, I should be applauded not punished on a leaderboard. As a "results-orientated" person, this has taken some adjustment for me. They do this so you build a systematic, organized approach to sales and ensure long-term results - but I still feel it is taken a little too far as you will get tracked on so many things it becomes overwhelming (and seemingly redundant) at times. There is LOTS of administration work to do like data entry and expense reports, but this has gotten easier for me over time, and I feel this is pretty typical of any Sales job. Culture-wise it has a few of the typical corporate mumbo-jumbo jargon and bottlenecks you will experience working for any large, global corporation. This is the macro. The micro-culture is awesome, and I really cannot speak highly enough on my office colleagues, managers, and directors.