Fastenal Reviews

Pros

Nice trucks and a predictable schedule, it was a dream job. The pay was sub-standard for the industry. I would have stayed employed with them had they been willing to work through one small issue, but they wouldn't even listen to my concerns.

Cons

Won't hear out complaints from employees. They have no desire to try to retain employees with years of service to the company.
It's no wonder you currently have 5 driving jobs posted on your website.
You have forgotten how to keep the drivers happy, if you could keep them happy they would never leave.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop allowing "lateral shop talk" , tell employees if they have a problem with a fellow employee they can NOT discuss it with some one of equal employment, they must take the complaint to the top.
Since you are obviously having a hard time recruiting drivers, maybe call some of the old drivers who had more than 4 years with the company and see if they are willing to work through what problems they had , that ended in them resigning from the company, I'm not suggesting you call back terminated employees, just ones that voluntarily resigned, you might be surprised to find some of us still hold the company in high regards.

Pros

decent chance to make money if you are in a good location
good sales training trips across the country
steady schedule
many of your peers are good people and you can have a lot of fun

Cons

the store manager i had was a joke at best, very disrespectful and on a power trip.
sales goals are very high even in low possibility areas.
get used to 'why didnt you do this...' even if youre beating all of your goals, if your not screwing over your customer to get every possible dollar youre doing something wrong.

Advice to Senior Management

be careful who you put in charge of the branch locations, this person was extremely under qualified. if the person youre putting in charge of the branch suddenly catches the old mgr doing something unethical after many years of service, think about it before promoting.

if every employee under this mgr is quitting, you should really look into why that is, not just assume they didnt like the job

Pros

Flexible vacation days. Good learning experience. Good entry level position.

Cons

7:30-5pm M-F. 30 minute lunch breaks. Low paying salary. Hard to move up in to another position.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize success more often. Help and teach when sales are down.

Pros

Dodge Ram delivery trucks, opportunity to build a career, meet new people, learn how to run a business, fairly easy going.

Cons

I was had 3 interviews over 3 months with 3 different managers. They all seemed to like me and i eventually got the job. I was studying sales at the time in college and knew a few people who worked for Fastenal. They liked it and felt they were getting good experience for a career once they graduated. I started the job and things were going fine, but I was in the truck with my branch manager one morning to go pick our other truck from the shop, and when we got back, I didn't have a job any more. He didn't take much time to get to know me, didn't like what he did or didn't see in me, and let me go after 5 days. I worked for a small, 4 person branch. I was let go, the other PT sales support guy went to ROTC camp shortly after, and our branch manager left for a better job in a different city at the end of the next week. 3 out of 4 people in my branch left in 2 weeks. Turnover is crazy at Fastenal. Anyone can get a job there, but not all of those people are qualified. I've heard all sorts of other things about all the bad in this company that these reviews seem so corroborate. Stay away.

Advice to Senior Management

The company is made up of people, people who need to be taken care of in order to make the company run the way they see fit. How about taking care of them like people instead of things? Do you think that might help with the turnover issue?

Pros

For PT work:
Flexible schedule
Good pay (especially for a student)
Meet a vast variety of people from many backgrounds
Learn how to think and make decisions quickly
Learn to micromanage
Free training and opportunities

Cons

VERY fast paced
Can get hectic when your OSP and Manager are out and you are the only one there to answer 4 phone lines and handle 5 walk-in customers.
Expected to pick up every aspect quickly despite having no formal training, being thrown to the wolves.
Lack of communication. Almost none trickle down effect

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate better. Allow more than 2-3 people to work at a store. Emergencies happen and it can create a huge burden when that burden could be avoided. Recommend having at least one Manager, OSP, and ISP at every store.
Reiterate communication. It is vital for success!!!

Pros

A lot of freedom! You set your own pricing to your customers and your always on the road in a nice truck. If you land the right account you could be set for a while, but it's very hard to land with current compeition. Full medical and dental and it was pretty easy to take a day off.

Cons

Pay was one of the lowest around for outside sales, no personal car, no cell phone, and your make A LOT of calls!!! Outside sales position always got screwed with commission. Managers made decent commission but expect to work almost 60+ hrs a week.You work a minimum of 50 hours a week, and you have to be in the office at 7am! This is more of a job for people that like to work by themselves. Each store will have 2-5 employees depending on success of the store, so if you don't have a cool manager you're screwed!

Advice to Senior Management

How you expect an outside sales rep to be on the road 80% of the time and not give them their own cell phone? fixated on new actives rather than hitting sales numbers and outside sales rep never get rewarded for hitting sales numbers, just a pat on the back.

Pros

good starting pay. flexable work shifts for part-time.

Cons

slow,very boring, hard to move up within.

Advice to Senior Management

down train, give insider imput on advancement.

Pros

Fairly flexible schedule and a lot of independence.

Cons

Unless you have worked for the company for 10 or more years, expect no respect or true growth within the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow others to bring new ideas to the table and just because someone is young and fresh out of college doesn't mean that they don't know what they are talking about.

Pros

Be part of a large company with millions of dollars in sales.
HUGE employee discount, you pay the cost plus 5% markup instead of 60%.
Paid training.
Drive a nice dodge ram truck occasionally

Cons

When you get to teh nuts and bolts of it (haha sorry I had to), its a very boring tedious job. Counting different size bolts doing inventory checks of 2500 parts. It's a lot of work for not a great wage. Can get boring with only 2-4 co-workers in a warehouse they call a retail store. Better off getting a more interesting job and a more interesting company than one that sells fasteners.

Advice to Senior Management

Dont be so fake. Pretending like its the greatest live experience and investment into your future b.s. Its an hourly boring job with the hopes of making 30,000 a year if you get 'promoted'.

Pros

You can work hard, 60 hours a week, and get promoted. You can design your work day to your liking. You have the ability to think outside the box. Mandatory drug testing for all employees Jan 1 2012. They can now reduce their workforce and make their share holders happy.

Cons

You can work hard, 60 hours a week get promoted and make $2800.00 a month- No overtime is paid. Your upper management will be a collection of young white males who were promoted based on their ability to sell clients overpriced material they really didn't need. Upper management will not communicate with you unless your numbers go down. If your numbers do go down, will they assist you to get them back up-No, "If you're not moving up, you're moving out" Is there motto. Travel for company reasons and they pair you up in the Motel with another worker, usually a total stranger.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay wages that are consumate with a person's experience. Set concrete guidelines for performance goals. Get rid of the regional VP's