Cars.com Reviews

2.7

35% would recommend to a friend

(669 total reviews)
avatar

Alex Vetter

43% approve of CEO

19% positive business outlook

Cars.com has an employee rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars, based on 669 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Cars.com employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

669 reviews
2.0
17 Dec 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work from home. Somewhat flexible work schedule. Decent product.

Cons

Micromanagement at its finest by unqualified and inexperienced middle management who lack any kind of business acumen, ethical professionalism, or moral standards. They preach culture and work/life balance—don't buy it—it's a fallacy. Unrealistic goals—20% YOY growth expectation. Low compensation—new comp plan every year—progressively worse for the employee. Chargebacks that penalize the Rep on cancellations at 100% of monthly rate against current commissions after—in many cases—years of billing—is just simply greedy, unfair, and ridiculous! Extremely Cliquey—good luck if you're not in “the in-crowd." Favoritism at its worst. Merit-based promotion is non-existent—they promote their low-performing “favorites” to protect them from PIPs and/or termination. Open communication/feedback is neither encouraged nor welcomed. Overall—a company that seems to value superficiality over substance—good looks over talent—confidence over competency—and glibness over intelligence. This is the Achilles' Heel of the company and will be the ultimate reason for its epic fail.

3.0
17 Jan 2018

The greatest ability is ACCOUNTABILITY

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The new office is nice and a huge upgrade from the last place. Benefits are on par with others in the area, nothing special though. It’s a good place to start your career.

Cons

The PXT (People Experience Team/Human Resources) team is one of the worst in Chicago. The so-called Business Partners will only correspond with Directors and above while avoiding everyone else. What kind of HR team does not want to talk with people? Furthermore, confidential information is leaked all the time and when you bring this up they state an investigation into this matter is a lot of work. The Operations (call center, fulfillment, account management, etc..) department has been blown up and turn it into a support sales ONLY model to drive revenue. 
 Many of the Product owners have no experience and as a result we’re making silly mistakes that cost the company revenue on a daily basis. Cars has no active CTO which is vital for an origination this size and it’s clear that Tech’s only function is to support Product maybe that’s why most tech staff is leaving at a record pace. 
 Sales controls the company and are untouchable! Most of the sales departments have no respect for others in the company and will manipulate anyone to get what they want to hit personal goals. In addition, we have roll-out plans for products that calls for sales to pitch a certain number of units and yet reps will not do it. Are you telling me there is not a single customer in your area that might be interested in a new product to help them? Even a "no" would help us drive change. Leadership has not communicated an action plan around these Glassdoor reviews in years so it seems the strategy is to just avoid it and hope they go away. The CEO recently got many of us together in the lunchroom to talk about the issues with the company and a few old school employees at my table were not interested which was disappointing….maybe that is why nothing ever changes! Also if your tight with the CEO or CRO your untouchable no matter your performance
. The employee review process changes every quarter and your manager is suppose to have a conversation with you each month to talk about your performance, yet the majority of managers do not including VP’s and CET (Cars Executive Team). Compensation is not close to market or based on experience regardless what HR says. The culture is different depending on what floor you work on which is sad for such a small organization. 



avatar
Cars.com Response
8y
Thank you for sharing your extensive feedback on the areas in which we missed delivering a great experience for you. The feedback you shared in your review is not taken lightly. After 19 years of being a part of another company, we spun off into an independent, publicly traded company last year and it was a big step forward that required a lot of change. Some of that change was more seamless than others and we are doing our best to be patient as we all learn, grow and adjust to our new normal. Compensation and benefits are always top of mind for us as talent is in high demand in this competitive industry. We are always working to improve our already generous benefits packages to make sure our employees feel empowered, appreciated, and have the healthy work/life balance they deserve. Thanks to feedback like yours, we will continue to get better and learn.
2.0
4 Dec 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are still a lot of smart, talented tech people who care about Cars.com. The work-life balance and benefits are great.

Cons

Upper management is stubbornly blind and is driving out promising tech leaders. I personally don't trust HR to pass on or act on any constructive feedback or raised issues - it's now a black hole.

avatar
Cars.com Response
8y
Thanks for your feedback. We’re proud to have built an organization where our work life balance is above average, and people feel empowered and appreciated based on their ability to deliver outcomes. We recognize that having a strong, supportive workplace leads to happier, healthier and more productive employees. We are sorry to hear that your experience at Cars.com was not the experience we intended. Improving communication and transparency from HR is a priority we know we need to address. Sometimes, we’re so focused and driven to innovate, meet demands and deliver results, we miss opportunities to communicate effectively. We’re working very hard to change that. We experienced a lot of change in our Product and Tech organization in the recent past and that brings challenges with setting priorities. By the nature of our industry, we like new ideas … which can also make it difficult to set priorities. As an independent public company, we know this is a muscle we need to strengthen. We are focused on doing a better job at relying on our strategic plan to guide our decision-making. We also recognize the desire for career paths and structures; everyone wants to know what they need to do to move up and feel accomplished. We have room to improve on those structures and coaching our people on how to navigate them. We will continue to consider this feedback and push forward on these improvements to making Cars.com a great place to work.
Viewing 1 - 3 of 669 Reviews

Glassdoor has 707 Cars.com reviews submitted anonymously by Cars.com employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cars.com is right for you.