Toxic Sales Culture - Business Development Representative (BDR) StudentBridge Employee Review

2.0
Feb 14, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing coworkers, hybrid schedule, meal subsidies

Cons

This place honestly has so much potential. It's sad how it's squandered by poor leadership. First, the sales team is a revolving door. I've worked at companies a lot larger that don't have such an issue with retaining sales members. For a student retention company, you would think that retaining employees would be their specialty. Regardless of if you're hitting quota or not, you will be micromanaged on what time you leave and encouraged to punch the clock later like a Walmart cashier receiving overtime. They mostly do this because they're struggling to close deals and need volume to solve it. Leadership will guilt and then punish you for not coming into the office, even when there are multiple warnings of severe weather. Working from home here is seen as a perk for sales, as opposed to part of the description. Coming into the office is pointless however, as the job can be done at home, and they offer little to no coaching in office. You'll spend 2 hours in an internal meeting, then walk away with nothing that pertains to your job. Creating opportunities for the company is a fruitless job. Sales leadership struggles to close the deals you hand them, and then tells you to go find more. Lack of diversity in leadership makes it extremely difficult to build trust and rapport with minority/women facing institutions. There's no path to career progression here, as there are not many ex sales that have integrated into other roles in the company. You will most likely be a BDR for life, as they tell you monthly that they promote from within. Sales team leads will go behind your back to leadership, and their word is gospel because they're a member of the good old boys club. Leadership will smile in your face, then talk down on you in internal emails. Marketing is just as useless, making BDRs do mock discovery calls with already warm prospects that could've been brought on through out reach. Leadership here has little to no experience in higher education, especially with a CEO that boasts about never attending college, and it shows. Now that the COVID college landscape is correcting itself, they're struggling to pay themselves their high salaries. If you do decide to work in sales here, be sure to have your mental health prepared to be flogged.

Explore other reviews about StudentBridge

5.0
Nov 7, 2025
Anonymous contractor
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Really great team to work with. I never had one negative interaction, and I learned a lot!

Cons

The market is tough. Schools are not spending as much.

3.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The leadership is great. Very easy to like personally and they believe in their mission.

Cons

The products (or lack there of?). As far as I could tell, the 'software products' are essentially websites. I never saw the backend (I tried), so admittedly, I could be wrong. If I am wrong about this, then that's a different Con to write about.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All