Company: Oracle
Date: 2017-06-12
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Avoid at all costs
Pros: - Good benefits (i.e. healthcare plans)
- Manageable and flexible work-life balance
- Young sales workforce
Cons: - From direct managers to upper management, the company struggles immensely in creating a cohesive, motivated and successful salesforce. While many SDRs graduated from top schools and are ambitious, smart and hardworking, the credentials and work experience of management and senior sales representatives are not particularly impressive.  Mediocre leadership skills and poor decision-making are the norm among management, which negatively affects the performance of subordinates. The company and its senior employees have little to no regard for the well-being and professional fulfillment of its employees, so any attempt from below to reform the status quo and improve processes will be immediately shut down. 

- While Oracle is widely regarded as a "dinosaur" in the tech industry, the incompetence of the company's management fosters a strange work environment in which professionalism and ethical behavior are not valued. Questionable work practices, along with sexist, homophobic, racist and other offensive remarks, are commonplace, and employees rarely report transgressions to HR because they often feel as though such issues are not addressed adequately.  In terms of work culture, Oracle somehow prides itself in lagging behind other tech companies and for retaining a traditional, "old-school" environment where young, progressive-minded individuals will often find themselves at odds with an antiquated and uninspiring work culture. The company doesn't care whether you crave for an intellectually-stimulating, collaborative and inspiring workplace; it's all about the numbers and achieving sales quotas, nothing more. 

- Lastly, this is an incredibly boring and unfulfilling job. As an SDR, you will be expected to make cold calls, build spreadsheets with hundreds of contacts, and send e-mails all day long. Save for the occasional sales meetings in which your only responsibility is to introduce your sales team to the customer, your day-to-day activities will remain unchanged for the duration of your tenure. This monotonous and unfulfilling routine is mentally (and emotionally) taxing, especially for those who are recruited from top schools. That hard-earned diploma from your elite university will feel like a waste while working here.