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SolarCity

Acquired by Tesla

Is this your company?

Poor mid level Managment - Senior Field Energy Consultant SolarCity Employee Review

1.0
Jul 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Work with cool people who have the same vision - Flexible schedule - CEO’s are very involved and are always motivating - Company Car (You can use it for personal) - Gas Card

Cons

I’ve worked for the company for 10 months and had 3 different regional managers within those 10 months. There is very high turnover with this company as I was a vet working there less than a year. On one of our last calls before I left the company they expressed concern on why they had lost over 200 employees across the company in one month. I’ve been in sales for over 10 years and have never worked for a company that has had poor mid-level management. I say poor meaning my Regional Manager didn’t even know who to have a coaching conversation. I understand that everyone needs to start somewhere, but SolarCity really needs to set up their managers for success and not promote people based of the buddy system. They also need to realize just because someone can sell doesn’t mean they can manage a team of 15 consultants. There is no clear path for your development. I logged into “peopleworks” and tried to start a development path and sign up for some online classes. There wasn’t 1 glass available on the entire site that would aid me in my career path. And having a manager who doesn’t know how to have a coaching conversation wouldn’t be any help to my development anyway. You’re told that you will receive half of your leads from the Field Energy Advisors. These are lead generators who work in The Home Depot and Best Buy. The fact is, if you want any of the leads from the lead generators you have to work with them inside the stores for the leads to come to you. So this is the process for………. 1) Generate your own leads (Lead generators are pointless if you have to go in and generate your leads with them.) 2) Run the in-home consultation 3) Design the system 4) Sign the customer up 5) Get all the required paperwork from the customer and email it to HQ 6) Once the final system is designed you’ll need to get another signature for the “Final Amendment” 7) They you get paid once the system is up on the customers roof. So you’re basically doing everything from start to finish, being the project manager, and making sure the system gets installed so you get paid. It’s a lot of work required for a 35k base salary. Yes, you do make commission but you’ll be working 7 days a week if you want to make around 60k-70k. They’ll tell you it’s easy to make 100k, but the fact is only one person in my entire region was making that. If it’s so easy, why is only one person making that? Everyone else was making about 55k. Keep in mind there are great people who work for this company and have earned where they are today. This reveiw is for Berkeley Ca and surrounding regions not for the entire compnay.

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SolarCity Response
11y
Thank you for your detailed response. We are very proud of our mission and culture—we are here to help save the world! I will be sharing your feedback with our sales team as we are always looking to improve employee knowledge of our career structure and job outline.

Explore other reviews about SolarCity

5.0
Oct 21, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Good pay and no supervision working at the different Home Depots

Cons

Having to make numbers and sales

4.0
Mar 22, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Just to quantify my review a bit, I am within the top 10% of inside sales reps within our 12,000 person company. It is a great place to work and people doing well ARE able to make good money here. The executive team ALWAYS has a platform for reps to help make SolarCity a better place every quarter. They involve the top 20 reps each quarter in various ways to help their peers through an interactive group called Team Elite. Executives, VP's, Directors, and Managers are always willing to help and go to bat when there are issues with things that need to be fixed. The direction of the company is consistent and although the company is large, decision makers work as hard as possible to steer the big ship quickly when necessary.

Cons

Knee jerk reactions with decision making at a director level create issues from time to time. Culture has had its ups and downs due to HUGE growth last year and subsequent high attrition rates.

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