Cobalt Group Reviews

Pros

Good camaraderie and teamwork - for the most part, people work together and share the credit fairly. Plenty of smart, experienced folks around to bounce ideas off and joust with. It's the most casual, laid-back workplace you ever saw, complete with Friday afternoon beer & wine on the house. Flexible work schedules are no problem. The Dilbert quotient is reasonably low in the management ranks. If you know your stuff and pull your weight, you can do well at Cobalt.

Cons

High turnover, including alternating hiring and layoff binges. Few seem to make it past even 5 years, and those who do seem to constitute something of an old boys club. A contrarian might consider the churn a possible "pro" as new blood is coming in all the time, but it does little for organizational cohesion. Understaffing in many areas necessitates lots of long days and off-hours work keeping the lights on and projects on track. The current rotten conditions in the auto sector mean constant job uncertainty for all, though that's hardly unique these days.

Advice to Senior Management

Credit is due here: nice work navigating the treacherous waters we're in right now. Remaining profitable in this environment is a major achievement.

Suggestion: invest further in infrastructure. While significant progress has been made, there's still too much creaky old junk causing emergencies and sucking down precious resources. Don't be so reluctant to kill off old products past their prime or no longer strategic; they also consume an inordinate amount of scarce staff energy. Be cautious before hiring AND firing - both are costly.

Thanks for listening.

Pros

Benefits, Flexibility, Culture, People here are helpful and friendly. Community. It's really a great place to work no matter what position you're in.

Cons

Salary could be better, has been better in the past with bonuses, blame it on the economy. The benefits plan could be better (it's one of those where you get a better rate the more you participate in the Wellness Plan.)

Advice to Senior Management

We need a core team of individuals who can make decisions and implement change across departments faster and with more authority.

Pros

Over the past 4-5 quarters Cobalt senior and middle management have been upgraded through inorganic hires and reorganization. I think this has created new energy in the company that just wasn't present in the first half of 2008. Subsequently, the new hires that have been coming aboard in the past year seem to be high caliber and they in-turn are attracting the same.

The structure of the company changed too, it's now organized around centers of excellence. This, IMO, seems to have brought more focus to the respective groups.

Cons

Cobalt feels like a start-up company, great ideas and plans for products and services in a large and growing market, but the company has many customers and support obligations. Not sure this is a downside of working at Cobalt, but projects are vetted and triaged closely, but maybe not closely enough.

Advice to Senior Management

More scrutiny on non-strategic projects should be applied. Taking a look at the older products and services and determining whether they can be phased out could free up resources.

Pros

A great place to work if you like a fast pace, thrive on change, and appreciate smart people. One of the only companies that is actually hiring and growing in Seattle because we are positioned to help our customers get more effective with how they spend their money in the advertising space.

Cons

If you need a lot of structure and someone always telling you what or how to do Cobalt is a tough place to be. Things are moving too quickly and the space is too unpredictable to be a highly structured environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the open door policy going and continue to educate employees about how open you really are - I've found I can always get the info I need by just asking, but based on what some people on this site are saying, they obviously don't feel they can go to Sr Leadership with their concerns and questions, and instead feel the need to post on a site like this.

Pros

It is a play hard, work hard environment and we have quarterly team outings, beer 30 on Friday's, very casual dress attire, and overall the people are fun to work with.

Cons

Although the number of accounts most of us have is high, it comes with the territory and I really do believe managers know this is a challenge and are working on it, but we would like it do be sooner than later.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue in getting employees more engaged.

Pros

If you like Sodo or Lynnwood... Don't think there are really any other good things to say about the place.

Cons

YUCKY. Everyday, every way. If you like constant belittlement, not knowing what's going on, managers who use you to get where they're going, you'll love this place.

Advice to Senior Management

Look deep in to what's going on where and who's doing what. Does it really help your clients or your bottom line?

Pros

Very laid back environment. Employees can come and go as they please as long as they do their work. No dress code. Fun company culture, free beer and cocktails every Friday.

Cons

Very political. Difficult to get things done when multiple departments are involved. Behind the curve technologically. Very little opportunity for advancement. Freeze on pay raises and bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

Unfreeze pay raises and bonuses if you hope to retain talented employees.

Pros

The health benefits are good and there is alot of free time during the work day. Very relax dress code is nice. The manager don't bug you unless you screw up. You can pretty much come and go as you please. Alot of people take many smoke breaks all day. Free coffee. Ping pong table. Good work life balance and they are understanding if you have a personal matter to take care of.

Cons

WAY TOO MANY ACCOUNTS to be a good account manager. Working with low life car dealers. Alot of reports and lists and different programs for the advocates for bs busy work. Management have no idea how much work is entailed for 50 accounts. A total chaos with information, processes, changes, ect. Moral is real low. All the managers play favorites big time! And usual, the worst advocates are the "favorites" and they come to work late, go home early, take 30 minute smoke breaks, or don't even come into work, and "work from home" It is so obvious that sucking up to your manager is the only way to get ahead. AA's are thrown under the bus all the time by dealers, managers, and AE's, and we have to sit there and take it with no back up. They have limited spots for getting promoted. Also no bonuses or pay raises this year except for a few favorites.

Advice to Senior Management

Some managers have stuck up attitudes and they don't have a clue as to what AA's do on a daily bases. One on one's and reviews are a joke. Stop playing favorites. Moral is low. Back up your workers when a dealer is being a jerk. Crack down on all the employess that are never there and come and go as they please. A raise would be nice.

Pros

It's located in an interesting building in the SoDo district south of downtown Seattle, but the cubes in the western half of the building are cramped and dingy. There are a lot of smart people at Cobalt, the compensation package was pretty good.

Cons

It's extremely chaotic, the priorities are always changing, the team members are working on so many different projects it's very hard to focused on the most important projects. They gave lip service to doing performance reviews throughout the year, it all happened at once. Many of the employees park on the west side of 1st Avenue South and have to cross that 5 lane extrememly busy street throughout the day. It's very dangerous and several people have come close to getting hit.

Advice to Senior Management

Decide what's important and then stick with it, quit trying to satisfy all the dealer groups all the time

Pros

Cobalt is well positioned in the automotive marketplace due relationships with most of the major OEMs. The company is well recognized in the marketplace as a leader of web solutions for automotive dealers. The starting pay was very competitive, the benefits package more than acceptable, and the balance between work and family is important to senior management. They provide you with many of the tools needed to be successful, including laptop, miles reimbursement, marketing collateral, and access to product management. In Seattle, the culture and unity appears to be positive and team building is very important to senior management. There are worse places to work.

Cons

The company earns the majority of its revenue from OEM contracts, therefore diminishing the value placed on outsides salespeople. As a result, Account Executives are expected to produce immediately, or they will be fired and replaced. At the end of 2008, The Cobalt Group signed a major contract with GM, providing web-sites, paid-search, and procare services for all GM certified internet dealers in the United States. This contract caused a major backlog for the order fulfillment group and took websites and procare services away from the outside sales force, and was replaced with two products: paid search and OnStation email marketing. In my territory I had zero OnStation customers and two paid search dealers, therefore turning the job into a business development position. I was given two months to get to quota, and was fired despite being at 80%.

Advice to Senior Management

Place value on your outside sales people and give people time to develop their pipeline.