CORT Reviews

Do not take a job as a Clearance Center Manager. They will undersupport you, demand the sun, moon, and the stars, and then fire you for not attaining it. When I first started, a 14 year sales veteran (who had turned down multiple offers to become a manager) sat me down and said "You're just there to be someone they yell at. They hire and fire managers like nothing here, that's why I've stayed in sales." I went for training and every Clearance Center Manager was so demoralized and stressed out it reminded me of every other floundering retail company I've interviewed with or worked for. -There's no one with strong retail experience forming a plan, it's very much run like fiefdoms with no oversight. -Sales goals are set by what the company thinks they need, not what a retail store can reliably increase year over year. My store, for example, as a new manager, was given a 40% increase in sales from the previous year. This was held against me, despite one of my two employees (that's right, three people running a store best case scenario) missing months due to a major illness with no extra help hired. Employees not allowed to leave premises during lunch breaks but being forced to clock out. THAT'S ILLEGAL IN MANY STATES. Abusive power structure (I was fired for seeking advice on how to deal with an abusive boss who remains to this day one of the worst people I have ever met in my entire life.) Retail is complete chaos: Entrenched top executives who need to be turned over, fast. Jeff Pederson seems to be a good guy but he's really detached from what's going on in retail. Takes a YEAR for you to get vacation time. You get very burnt out quickly, and stores are so understaffed that you can't really take vacation time anyway. In a year and a half I was able to take 4 personal days off total. The company does a great job at hiring smart, motivated people, and then completely undercuts them. The demoralization sets in around 6 months or so.

There are absolutely no career advancement paths for employees of all levels and functions. Company loves to talk about building bench strength but has no plan for the talents they acquired. Be prepare for career and salary stagnation. Tiny annual raises that are laughable even for people who received excellent performance reviews and during years of solid revenue growth. Risk averse corporate culture makes innovation almost impossible. Leadership maintains the slow and steady wins the race approach and is not actively guarding itself from possible disruptive market forces that could take down established business models quickly. Again, leadership wants to do the right things and says the right things but actual and meaningful change and improvements are not happening.