I should preface this with the general headline that I was misled during my interview process which created a negative first experience with my management team.
The interview process seemed standard: role play, 1 on 1 interviews and panel interviews. I was rather surprised when I was lucky enough to reach the offer stage, that I would be reporting to a manager I had very little interaction with throughout my interview process. I should have pushed back further on this but I truly valued the company itself as an employer I want to work for and figured I could make the situation work.
The challenging part for me is trying to balance a long term career path at a company where I am fully support the vision and love the people, but have come to resent my manager and organization for the position I have been put in. Some operate well in an environment of fear based management, I am not one of those. Again, had this been clearly communicated in my interview process I would have rejected the offer but was misled on the culture along with who my direct manager was.
Additionally, I have grown increasingly disappointed at the lack of career interest from my manager and working with me to put a success plan in place to progress my career in a way that aligns with my goals. Instead, I have to fight for time with my manager who would prefer to live out of salesforce all day and doesn't value the concept of human interaction which is strange given I am a sales rep who interacts with people (externally and internally) as part of my core job on a daily basis.
Somewhat comforting is that I am not alone in this belief. In 1 year at the company and this organization, I have witnessed a handful of people leave who have started after me because they too were lied to as to what the job entails and who the manager is. This does not impact me directly, but I am sitting here puzzled as to how I was "lucky" enough to end up on a team where morale is near 0 while we're at a company where everyone seems so happy and grateful to be part of.
I would highly encourage anyone considering the opportunity to join this team or company to truly push your recruiter to confirm upfront who the hiring manager is for sure. I understand that unknown circumstances can pop up and organization changes happen frequently; but I also know I am not the only one getting tricked into working for a manager that no one wants to work for because they cannot lead by example or bring the best out of their people.
I was also sold on the tenure of leadership, only to find that my manager, and those on the same management team are comprised of first time managers who barely have more experience than the actual reps; some have less relevant experience yet still found a way into management.
Lastly, in the 4.5 quarters I've been part of the team, they haven't hit once. While most sales leaders probably inflate the team's performance to candidates, this team is definitely not achieving 110%+ as was told to me during my interview process. What's worse is that management does not shy away from hanging performance based plans over your head if you don't conform, even though 70% plus of reps are not even close to reaching plan. Perhaps a revaluation of quota, accounts and go to market approach is needed prior to ruling by fear.
