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      Cognism

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      Cognism Reviews

      3.2

      45% would recommend to a friend

      (335 total reviews)
      avatar

      Dominic Allon

      61% approve of CEO

      38% positive business outlook

      Cognism has an employee rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars, based on 335 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Cognism employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      335 reviews
      1.0
      24 June 2020

      A workplace filled to the brim with favouritism, racism, sexism, and outrageous unprofessionalism.

      Business development
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      If you are career driven and believe in being part of an inclusive, fair, and diverse environment - Cognism is not the place for you. There are a few pros regardless - there are lots of company events offering booze and the chance to hook up with your colleagues to distract you from working for a toxic excuse of a company, if that takes your fancy.

      Cons

      I worked at Cognism for a year and the facade of being part of a thriving and inclusive workplace quickly disappeared. The general style of management is to praise high performers and ply them with compliments and alcohol but scarcely provide a route for advancing their career or any scope for growing their skills. The entire culture created by senior management has replicated a sales office in the 80s: - Senior management is a complete joke . They are far more preoccupied with being liked than actually doing their jobs and instead end up perpetuating discrimination across the team and playing favourites almost everyday. - Sexism is a HUGE problem in the company; women are continuously objectified and also denied career opportunities. The workplace often resembles a university rugby team preparing for a night out. Hook up culture and relationships between employees has created not only an incestuous environment, but one where you manage to snag preferential treatment if you're involved with senior management. - Casual and blatant racism is an endemic across the company - anyone who speaks out runs the risk of being ridiculed by management and damaging any chance of progression within the team. The company is clearly one which hires to only fill a diversity quota instead of actually creating an inclusive workplace environment. - You are left out of the Cognism circle if you don't partake in heavy drinking and/or sucking up to senior management. If you don't have the skills or suitability for senior positions and also adhere to management's style of not training people and treating them like sales machines instead of human beings - you'll probably be promoted. Refrain from having an opinion, meet your target by any means possible, don't object to any offensive remarks, and do whatever management tells you to do without a second thought, that's Cognism's motto. In short, if you are white, male, middle/upper class, love alcohol and drugs, and completely lack a moral backbone - Cognism is the place for you.

      avatar
      Cognism Response
      6y
      Dear former employee, Cognism has a policy to hire graduates into junior sales roles and promote from within. Our current Head of Sales went through this route as did our now Head of UK Sales for Mailtastic. This policy has created accelerated career progression for employees that have performed in their roles. The company has consistently hit revenue targets and as CEO I prefer to give new opportunities to internal staff that have achieved results rather than hire externally. Cognism also have several female employees that are also now in senior sales roles after joining as graduates. Our former CRO was female who was our first sales hire and our current CMO is also female. Cognism celebrates success with our annual company wide offsite to Hvar that we ran in 2018 and 2019 and hope to run again in 2021. We now have strict rules around company events which we hope to host again after the covid crisis is over. Overall, the company will not tolerate any anti-social behavior and will investigate any instances where they are reported to HR or myself. Cognism is not going to ban employees being in relationships however we have strict rules around line managers and junior staff to ensure relationships do not affect careers. Cognism also runs a competitive process for promotions, we are always looking to improve that process and will review any criticism of it. We have never had any complaints sent to HR or myself about sexism or racism and as discussed in previous responses you are welcome to send any complaints and we will fully investigate as a former employee. I wish you the best in your future career. All the best, James CEO
      1.0
      30 July 2024

      Nepotism Runs This Company

      Account manager
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Some of the people are really nice, but none of them are in a managerial position

      Cons

      You put me on a PIP and told me to hit 95% of my number. When I told you no one in my region had ever done that, you literally told me that's my problem. Then you took away my 6 largest accounts and gave them to the Account Manager who has been friends with the Global Director of Account Management for years. So you put me on an unrealistic PIP, took away my largest accounts that would help get off of the PIP, and set up your buddy for future success - at the expense of my job and career. Thank you for setting me up for failure. This is easily the most unprofessional place I have ever worked.

      1.0
      1 May 2024

      Terrible Leadership, Terrible Product, Terrible Company

      Sales representative
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Being able to work remotely provided flexibility

      Cons

      Management is truly awful. When they laid off one of our team members I asked if I should be concerned about job security. They told me I was doing really well and had nothing to worry about. Then the put me on a PIP for 3 months. The goal for the PIP was unreasonable. It was something no one on our team had accomplished before. After the first month they said I was improving and wanted to extend it. Then they extended it again. During this process I kept asking for clarity. Will I be let go immediately or is there a transition period? How does that impact health insurance and benefits? How should I handle the transfer of things in Salesforce? My manager told me all of that will be clarified when we meet with HR. When we met with HR I was told that day would be my last day and my benefits, including health insurance, would expire in 3 days. Meanwhile their CEO posted on LinkedIn that day on how the majority of their employees come off of PIPs and how they work with those employees to find a new role within the company; something that was never discussed with me during my time. Management is clueless and inept.

      avatar
      Cognism Response
      2y
      I am sorry that your role at Cognism did not work out. In the majority of cases PIPS are successful and employees have accelerated in their careers when they have completed them. Cognism should support employees and provide the training and support to make them successful in their role. I would hope that every employee feels there is an open door where they can bring a complaint directly to me if they are not getting the support they need to be successful. In cases when there is a disciplinary issue, and an HR /legal process is already running management cannot become involved until that process is complete. If you feel you were unfairly treated feel free to outreach to me and I would be happy to listen and discuss. You can email me at james.isilay@cognism.com
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      Glassdoor has 365 Cognism reviews submitted anonymously by Cognism employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cognism is right for you.