Kaplan Reviews

Pros

1. Excellent training
2. Flexibility
3. Rewarding job

Cons

1. Mid to upper management are incompetent
2. Ever increasing responsibilites make this a minimum wage job timewise
3. By always adding more and more requirements, managementforces employees to lie
4. What you read about Kaplan in the press is largely true

Advice to Senior Management

By always adding job responsibilities and not raising pay you force most of your faculty to lie and cut corners. Your management apparently never learned the basicis of business practices. Kaplan is a great example of a good idea gone bad.

Pros

Start-up
Constant change
New acquisition which will help with revenue and leadership issues, hopefully
Fast paced
Helping at risk students get a high school education (some graduates are the first in their family to graduate from high school)

Cons

Lack of strong leadership
Leaders not held accountable
Communications are weak therefore employees start to create their own explanations/stories
Overload employees with work and a lack of support to accomplish their job
Virtual company, but headquarter employees can not work from home, only the virtual employees
Minimal training is provided in some jobs in too short of a period of time to assess new knowledge and be successful
Set new hires up to either sink or just have their head a little above water

Advice to Senior Management

Get organizational development assistance

Pros

very flexible, and better because they want you to work on campus.

Cons

Expect rejections and rude people while asking for leads

Pros

The ability to work with many hardworking individuals who care about making a difference.
Great programs.
The opportunity to sharpen your sales skills each time you get the chance to speak with a student.
Casual work attire environment.

Cons

Zero flexibility. The hours are what they are.
In order to get leads, you must work weekends. The distribution of the better leads is based on politics or favoritism.
Morale is LOW. There is a good reason for that and it starts with the Management/Leadership.
Senior management needs a major overhaul. Their leadership leaves something to be desired. A couple of the middle managers do a far superior job at effective communication and managing.
They may want to rethink their hiring/firing practices. Rather than continue to hire with the hopes of retaining a few people from each training class, then work with those who are hard working and dedicated. In other words, train and coach them.
Replace the training team.

Advice to Senior Management

Practice effective leadership and management skills daily. Senior management needs to take a good look at the changing environment in the education world, and needs to revise their business plan immediately.

Pros

Hourly pay is good, and once you get through the first cycle the prep time is lessened. I also like my coworkers a lot.

Cons

No opportunity for advancement, nor is there any paid time off or health benefits. This is not a job you get when looking for a career, but it's good for students or people trying to do other things.

Pros

Kaplan contains some of the hardest working individuals I have ever worked with (everyone works a minimum of 9 hours a day - they only pay you for 8 though).

The new office space (395 Hudson Street) is nice and has a newly renovated cafeteria.

Corporate is trying to create inter-division unity by hosting events (trivia, small weekly parties, etc) that are actually fun.

Since Kaplan is part of the Washington Post Company there are some nice perks.

Cons

Even though everyone works a minimum of 9 hours a day and pours their heart and soul in to their job, morale is low because senior management hardly ever acknowledges their employees' accomplishments. You are expected to churn out massive amounts of work like a robot.

When promotions do happen, they are not based on hard work or accomplishments due to the fact that there is rampant favoritism. If you're good at schmoozing senior management and enjoy listening to yourself speak in meetings, but actually don't know a whole lot about how to innovate/market, Kaplan will be a great fit for you.

Raises are non-existent at Kaplan (even yearly cost of living raises). My salary was significantly lower than industry average.

VERY HIGH turnover rate (not surprising).

A word to the wise: stay far away from Kaplan because their business plan is leading them down a dangerous path. Part of the reason I left is because I don't agree with their new business model. I'm predicting that their new initiatives will result in layoffs in early 2012.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to seriously re-think your business plan and evaluate who your customers are and how they use your product. Sales figures don't lie and show you exactly what consumers want...stop blatantly ignoring them.

Stop diverting resources away from your core product line (which coincidentally brings in the bulk of your revenue) to ancillary ones that are free/aren't valuable to the consumer. Take the blinders off and realize this is not a viable business plan.

Do something/anything to improve morale. Recognize accomplishments of everyone, not just a select few who enjoy hearing themselves speak in meetings/take credit for what others have done.

Pros

Kaplan is a global company that is redefining education. Some very bright people work for the organization that are great to work with and are very helpful.

Cons

I felt like a little fish in a huge pond and no one really cared about you.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire and keep people that are ethical, bright, and can work with other people.

Pros

Growth Industry and still growing

Cons

High paced environment, sometimes monotonous

Advice to Senior Management

compensation must be changed due to new federal regulations

Pros

Big company, some good managers, executives are willing to help others, flexible jobs, pay is ok, work environment is alright.

Cons

Lots of internal politics, some manager are good, some are so suspicious. Some managers are fed up with their bosses and they took out their anger on others.

Advice to Senior Management

Proper training, better manager, regular review of managers. Better salaries for starters and better comunication with staff. Regular review will help.

Pros

Great staff and coworkers. A lot of fresh, young talent many straight out of college. Casual office environment, maybe even too casual.

Cons

The worst starting salary I have ever heard of, and they do not advertise it on the job posts. You have to go through the interview process and actually be offered the job before the salary is mentioned. And then, it is shockingly low.

Advice to Senior Management

If there is such a high turnover, you should really take a look into why people are leaving. Could it be the terrible salary? It is far more profitable to employ good people long term than train new people all the time.