Company: Oracle
Date: 2017-02-02
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Sales and Business Development Consultant
Pros: Strong class-of bond and cool peers. Success is often luck-based, so if you're in a lucky territory or have a good relationship with your sales team, you hardly need to work more than a few hours a day to show great numbers. If you do really well, you will get promoted in a year.
Cons: Where do I begin? I was very motivated to do well as a fresh college graduate. However, I quickly learned that success at Oracle means learning to play their game and has NOTHING to do with you own abilities. I was lucky to have a good manager and team, but that doesn't mask the fact that 80% of my time was spent logging pointless "interactions" and bombarding customers with unwanted messaging/information. Calling fake companies and phone numbers to make your metrics look good is a very common practice. The amount of false information put into the system is unbelievable - I don't know how this company hasn't collapsed already. 

There is also a very "fratty" culture. There were a few times I felt uncomfortable with the highly unprofessional conversations, and more than a few times where I felt uncomfortable at work because someone was make unwanted advances on myself or a female coworker. No one is invested in building the company, but rather in making money themselves or bettering there career. There's a lot of back-stabbing and sneaking around, even on the same team. Don't work here if you want your hard work to be reflected in the company. 

Perhaps the worst disappointment of all is the pay. Some people can make great money here, but they are very few and far between. The recruiters flat-out lied about how much money you can actually make, since commissions are pooled. If Oracle doesn't hit it's number (which it almost never does), you will NOT make your full commission or even sniff anything close. I consistently exceeded my number by almost double every quarter and hardly saw anything in commission. Management tries to justify poor commissions by saying "it's fine, you're just learning and you'll be promoted in the year." The truth is, being promoted to a sales representative at Oracle is an even worse place to be in. Unless you have an extremely lucky territory or fall into a deal cycle, you risk not closing anything for your first year (or more). This means you will be living on your base salary of $53,000 with no hope for commission. During my time at Oracle, I have seen only a couple of deals close in my entire division.