CDW Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

The money is definately there if you're willing to work for it. The people that you meet there are for the most part fun loving and you're pretty much assured to find yourself a very solid group of friends. Depending on your skill sets, ambition, and patience there are more than just a few positions there that will certainly earn you more than a six figure salary. There is an overall feeling of friendly competition and commaradery that serves well for any sales driven individual.

Cons

Because the company is over 25 years old, the larger accounts that have real potential to spend are pretty much taken. That being the case, you have to work a LOT harder these days starting out to build a book of business. They don't do anything for you in bringing you new (good) leads so you're pretty much on your own. Even if you decide you want to purchase your leads, you still have to take into account that there is a very real possibility that those organizations are already in the system and most likely being worked. There is also a lot of "red tape" for lack of a better word that you'll end up dealing with internally to fill orders for your customers. More than you should have to deal with working for an organization with our capabilities that is. Your manager can make or break you. In the event that you get one with a "hands off" approach or one with a "by the book" attitude, you will find yourself VERY frustrated and finding a way to work around that will put a lot of stress on you.

Advice to Senior Management

Retaining talent was listed as one of the goals for 2010. CDW needs to do a lot more to take a proactive approach in assessing who they consider worth retaining, and working with them in a no nonsense manner to correct the issues that they bring to the table. You'll find that the ones that are ready to leave, still love what they do, they simply are losing faith in their companies ability to or willingness to help us do what we tell our customers we're going to do for them.

Pros

Good corporate culture, fun events, good location

Cons

Favoritism runs rampant, promotions given to those that are well liked not to those that have the qualifications and deserve it.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize employees for the good jobs they do and not just the complaints that are received

Pros

Good company to work for

Cons

60 hour work weeks most weeks

Advice to Senior Management

Work life balance is not fair especially for IT. The top management seems to ignore that IT folks are constantly working overtime.

Pros

Flexible Schedule, On-Site Daycare, Fitness Center, Donation Matching

Cons

Slow computer systems, inconsistency with employee allowances between departments, little to no 401k benefits, not as concerned with taking care of employees since company went private, stingy work-from-home program, little to no job sharing opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Fairness is needed between all departments / sub-departments in terms of flexible work hours, work from home days, working at different offices. Also, you have many unproductive people in the office which affects the morale of all the good workers, and management is completely unresponsive because they're too afraid to lose headcount.

Pros

Good people to work with, at least in the department I am in. The company seems to value your work/life balance. Also, I thought that for the people I worked for, they did a good job of pushing your professional development.

Cons

For the most part, I don't have anything too negative to say. It's a good company to work for as a whole. If there's one thing I could change though, it's that certain departments are not maximizing their potential. CDW is a large company with a large customer base that can be tapped into but I don't think certain service areas are doing it well enough.

Advice to Senior Management

None, really.

Pros

good atmosphere - lots of young kids right out of college
benefits are better than most places right out of school
great training program... 6 weeks intensive training, 6 months of continued training (4ish hours a week)
you actually make commission on all of your sales (but you still make practically nothing unless you sell a ton)

Cons

the base salary is a joke - 25k... its kind of a slap in the face
too many product areas to be familiar with

Advice to Senior Management

none, they do a great job encouraging their employees. they just need to pay a little better if they want to keep people, but i think they would rather have the turnover so that the people who stick it out get the good accounts passed onto them.

Pros

CDW can teach out over the phone sales skills and tactics.

Cons

There is no more signing bonus. Depending on where you are located the pay may not be enough to qualify for an apartment.
CDW went private and the company is fixed upon bringing people in for the short term, "two years" in order to keep the funds rolling in to line the executives pockets.

Advice to Senior Management

Go to school or back to school for those of you who actually have a bachelors.

Pros

Young people makes for a relaxed and fun work environment

Cons

Never know what's going on, there are always rumors that may or may not be true, that are never addressed to all employees

Advice to Senior Management

Keep employees in the loop and help create a company facing attitude. It's a sales environment, so it's hard to keep people company centric, but we need to be to stop losing people.

Pros

Interesting work environment. Sales team is very young and energetic. Decent salary overall. Access to a lot of new technology straight from the vendors.

Cons

the only decent salary is made through a low base pay and bonus structure to make up for it. Not much vacation time. Very Sales-centric company. CDW used to be a great place to work. It has since gone downhill

Advice to Senior Management

take some time and listen to your non-sales roles. look at why your company made the top 50 places to work for so many years ago.

Pros

- A culture that promotes continued education and opportunities for advancement
- Non-sales positions are mostly reflective of industry averages
- Ability, in Sales, to build your own business and be as successful as you want to be through hard work and dedication
- Relatively relaxed working environment

Cons

- CDW has strayed quite a bit from a company that once focused on their employee
- Ever changing pay strucutre leads to loss of talent
- Lack of adoption of Work From Home practices

Advice to Senior Management

Identify more internal talent for advanced management positions vs. finding it outside.
Put more of the focus on the work-life balance of your employees.
The employee is what made CDW successful from day 1, reward us with more agressive compensation.