Where do I begin...
1. The product is a good to have, with many flaws and glitches in the most important features. Churn rate is relatively high, I would say over 60% of clients churn from my knowledge. The clients who will buy this "accessory" are the big enterprises who have extra cash. OR clients who haven't seen what else is out there in media monitoring, until they find out all the limitations to the product (apart from glitches, the product claims to be able to monitor outside insight / public data; but it does not cover contents from websites they haven't established API with, like e-commerce websites, they cannot monitor the contents on these websites even thought the contents are public)
2. The onboarding experience was terrible, you have to set up everything on your own. Even though there are around 20 people in the company in Hong Kong, the company set-up is entirely a start-up firm.
3. The sales methodology is very basic but management seems to take pride in it because it's the easiest way to manage employees (will be further explained below)
4. Management is terrible. They don't understand management means to adopt different ways to groom a talent, but rather, they want you to force yourself to use their ways (not to mention, bad ways) to learn. To give you a better idea, try to visualise a monkey climbing a tree. Now imagine a fish climbing a tree. And this is when management comes in and tell the fish "you have to climb the tree, if you can't, you're not teachable. You have to force yourself to do things that make you uncomfortable in order to learn to climb the tree".
5. Wrong value in defining "learning" - it's a "tough love" environment where you will never feel accomplished and recognised. If you are an individual who loves learning, this isn't a place for you because they make you hate learning. Learning should be fun and learning is the most effective and efficient when it's fun but here, they make it a horrible experience.
6. No relationship building element at all even though it was a sales role. In fact, Meltwater encourages you to be rude to clients because Meltwater people's time is more important than the clients'
7a. They will sell you the dream during the interview but at the end of the day, it is a telemarketer position. If you value relationship building with C-level clients, this is not a place for you. The only time you will need to speak to them is when you pitch them the product and ask them for budget - ALL DONE OVER THE PHONE. After that, C-level individuals won't know who you are, won't be the ones using the product (their subordinates who are on the execution level will be the ones who use the products) and you are always hiding behind the product - like mentioned, a very basic sales methodology with no relationship building element
7b. If you value relationship building, this place will ruin it for you. Director or C-level clients hate Meltwater and they hate you. If you want to do big projects in the future having to sell to the same people, Meltwater will only ruin the relationship for you as they encourage you to be pushy until the client specifically tells you to stop contacting them again
8. You are treated like a kid here. 100% micromanagement with no value added, they don't try to find out why you cannot do something but rather, reinforce that you have to do it in a certain way. Management has 0 problem solving skills in managing employees. That is because top sales get promoted step by step to become a manager. Top sales are great sales but top sales aren't great managers.
9. You are not allowed to have feelings. They give you the most robotic tasks and if you show slight emotions, you are referred to as "not teachable"
10. They hire outgoing people to be trapped in a place that you cannot be yourself
