Pros
Cbeyond gives good, in-depth sales training using an aggressive model. You learn to be a very aggressive salesperson selling a difficult product while working 12 hour days. If you stick with it, you definitely learn how to sell and future employers will know that coming out of here you definitely have some good work ethic. Also, there is opportunity to advance rapidly, with promotions possible within months of being hired. There is also good camaraderie within the salestaff, and a pretty youthful atmosphere. We also get a Blackberry.
Cons
DO NOT WORK HERE IF YOU WANT ANY SORT OF LIFE BEYOND WORK. Signing up to work at Cbeyond essentially means signing your life away. This is a sales SWEATSHOP. They will work you to death. My branch even tried to have us cold call on a Saturday. You will literally work 12 hour days for just average sales pay, and your days will be bookended by hours of bureaucracy. We have an hour and a half of meetings before we even hit the phones, and after 40 dials, and then hitting 50 cold call doors/points, we have to drive BACK to the office to do time-wasting paperwork and computer data-entry on EVERY. SINGLE. DOOR. we hit that day. I arrive at the office at 7:25AM, and half the time I don't leave until 7:30 PM or later. I get back at my house around 8; I never even see my boyfriend in sunlight unless it's the weekend since I leave before the sun rises and return after it sets. I used to run 3 miles a day and go to the gym regularly--nope, don't do that anymore. I used to do a lot of stuff like have hobbies and cook etc but now I come back so exhausted that I'm in bed at 11. Don't work here if having time off around the holidays is important to you (like if your family is out of state and you want to visit them). Company policy has it so that only 20% of an office can take a day off on any given day, with the decision based on tenure. This means that the other 80% of us are working on Christmas Eve irregardless of whether we have the vacation days accrued or not. The gas compensation plan is also retarded. Rather than compensate us for the amount of gas we use or the number of miles we drive, or just providing a reasonable flat gas comp per month, we get just $50 a month. After that, we get $10 for each company we run a full appointment with. That's regardless of whether your territory is right outside the office or 30 miles away. I have a far territory--I drive about 100 miles total each day--so even though I've run a helluva lot of appointments I still don't get nearly compensated enough on gas. Speaking of comps, commissions, and bonuses... well, we don't get those until 2 months later anyway. And if you quit before you've actually been issued a check for something you EARNED (like appointment gas comps or commissions), you just won't get them. I've been working here for 2 months, and so far I haven't seen a penny of it. From what I understand I will get all that at the end of THIS month, and I'm just biding my time to quit til then since otherwise I stand to lose nearly $1000 that I worked my butt off for. We're forced to act so damn happy and excited about Cbeyond at work, but really this is a nightmare job from hell and every day I regret turning down good sales jobs at multinational corporations with normal hours and better pay to work here. I was suckered in by all the happy campers I met here during my interview and field ride, and drawn to the youthful post-college company culture. I ignored the reviews on this site, actually, because the hiring manager and other people I talked to here all told me to ignore it. Now I'm one of the "happy campers" telling interviewees how awesome the job is when really it's making me die inside and all I want to do is tell them to run away while they still have the chance.
