RUN!!! VERY FAST AND VERY FAR!
Pros
I worked in the "sales" team and they do hire some great people, many of whom I still catch up with regularly. There was a sense of camaraderie over just how miserable every single day was, and how we had all lost the will to live. Being forced to make hundreds of cold calls a day promising the moon (essentially lying about what we can do, how we know them and that we work with their competitors) to people who just do not want to speak to you sets you up for a strong career in sales where you'll be able to handle all sorts of rejection and monotony.
Cons
Where to start... management who had no right to be managers, a culture of bullying and intimidation that trickled from the top down. Being set extremely difficult targets in order to gain a promotion, meeting them, and then for some reason the company refusing to promote the Business Development Executives while hiring people into the next role up from outside the business. A colleague of mine was even told she wasn't promoted because "women aren't really suited for sales." The office is deadly quiet, the culture is toxic and managers actually encourage inter-department warfare and conflict. Although you do have sympathy for everyone across the business as you know they are just as miserable as you are. You know what you are being forced to sell to clients is just farmed content - 300 word articles packed with keywords that will not help the clients at all and the poor writers at Castleford being forced to churn these out at a rate that surely induces a mental breakdown. Clients - if you're going to pay what equates to be hundreds of dollars for an article that takes someone 20-30 minutes to write by people who aren't industry experts you're better off hiring someone inhouse and paying them a decent wage. Castleford's Twitter and Facebook followers and likes all of a sudden shot up by about 2,000 over the course of a few days.. and if you know anything about social media then you know what that means... If you have a job interview or offer from Castleford keep looking! It was the worst time of my life and you'd be much better off starting your career in sales with ANY other company!!!
