Pros
The SMB New Hire Sales Academy was when I undertook it good training and the job does teach you well in the world of selling. Having Gartner on your resume makes you attraactive for other companies - you will receive a lot of messages from recruiters
Cons
To summarise: Gartner SMB is an extremely immature, childish organization, run by managers who allow bullying and believe in “management by fear”. The location is aweful and the pay really bad. Career progression is close to non-existing and you will never be allowed time off during the holiday-season. Gartner SMB is a sinking ship. What once was a great place to work has grown into a terrible place heading for disaster. Please find the full description here below. *Gartner clam to "hire only the best talent" but in the end they are doing lots of “desperate hires” to cover for everyone leaving and reaching the goal of growing the sales force. The actual interviewing process is more like a psychology test. They will ask you all kinds of irrelevant questions, dig into your childhood and analyze your life until now. The only answer "good enough" if ever to answer what motivates you is money, and if you can show them a calculation of how much you need/want to make they will give you the highest mark. Truth is though, at the moment they are having so much trouble hiring good talent that speaks another language than English so they are taking in "desperate hires" just to fill the headcounts due to everyone who has left the Company lately. *If you are looking for somewhere you and your colleagues will stay for a longer time, look elsewhere. The turnover of people on the SMB floor is really high - there is always someone having leaving drinks. *Location. The Gartner office is located in Egham. This is outside of Staines, which is a 50-minute train ride from central London. When getting to the station there are shuttle-buses picking you up in the morning and dropping you off in the evening, only during selected times. Which basically means that if you are not driving, you are trapped in the office or dependent on the buses (which are most times delayed). You are paying between £230-300 each month just in the train tickets. If you are driving you get stuck on the highway or any other traffic jam highly likely to occur in the area. *The salary is way below the industry. Any other (well-established) IT company will pay you more. This is most likely due to the location. The very low salaries would not work in central London, or elsewhere. The whole compensation plan is poor. I now make more money in central London just in my basic salary than what i did when hitting my targets at Gartner. Oh, and the quarterly bonuses they talked about in the interviews do no longer exist. The highly valued Winners Circle is being cut down, and the company is paying less and less on what was once a really amazing experience. Rumors say the CEO even wanted to cancel the whole thing to save money and show better margins to the shareholders. *In terms of culture. Imagine a kindergarten for “adults”, or 20-year olds something. That is the feeling after some time on the floor. You will be micro managed, no managers will trust you are working unless they push you and keep an eye on you all the time. Not even when you call in sick will they trust you. Not even when you are called to important doctors appointments will they let you arrive later or work the day from home. Every now and then they will have some “fun” activities, basically forcing everyone to dress up in stupid costumes and playing pointless games. You will find that people will gossip. They gossip about everyone and everything like nothing was more important. You will find people cheating on their partners and families with teammates, colleagues, managers etc. Oh, there is bullying as well but none of the upper-managers seem to care about this. This is an extremely childish organization/business unit, in which the average age is probably 25. *People are promoted from Account Executives to Area Managers based on numbers and not on their people/managerial skills. As you can imagine this result in some catastrophic results and some managers think “management by fear” is the way forward since they are completely incompetent in managing a team. Some managers will respect your private time and realise you have a life outside of work, whereas some managers will force you in to multiple pointless stupid activities both weeknights and weekends. All paid for by yourself. *If you want any time off October – December 31st just forget about it. Even when your region is completely closed during the holidays, they will make you work. If you asre lucky they will let you “work from home” on the 24th of December, but trust me, the managers will be pinging you on im every hour to check up on you. Remember they don’t trust you. You will have to come in to the office the very last days of the year, including 31st of December, even if you have absolutely nothing left to do. There is no consideration for everyone wanting to spend time with their families during the holidays. *When you finally decide to leave the company they will try and keep you by saying there will be “management positions” for you in the future. Do not fall for this. Leave as fast as you possibly can. Do not look back. Run! Or do not even join to begin with. Any other company will be a better place, or at least not worse.