Great sales experience that builds the foundation for the rest of your career
Pros
ADP is an excellent foundation for your sales career. The company offers solid benefits, great quality of life, and famous sales training. The compensation is decent but top performers do very well. While working at ADP you will work with hard-working, talented individuals that genuinely care about your development. Management quality varies by region (my leadership team was great) and business unit - e.g., SBS is known for micro-managing while Majors and Nationals are more collegial. In addition, there are numerous routes for your career at ADP if you buy into the culture and mission. At ADP, you will truly become a better sales professional if you commit yourself to being successful.
Cons
Parallel to the pros of working here, ADP is known as " sales training for your next job." - i.e., ADP trains its salesforce well but struggles with retention. Basically, other companies heavily recruit ADP reps and will offer highly-attractive compensation packages. While ADP's benefits are good, many perceive the benefits as a "carrot on a string" - e.g., 401k and stock awards don't vest to you until after 2 years of continued service. Leadership will tell you that you can make amazing money due to uncapped commissions. This is true if you are an elite performer; however, across the board you can make more money elsewhere (and recruiters know this) and to get to elite level it takes many years of time invested. Going to the highly-coveted Presidents' Club used to be strictly based on revenue sold but now there are several restrictions such as blanket "unit gates" that are easily achievable in some markets and extremely difficult in others. Furthermore, ADP sales is a sign-and-move-on type of sale. There is no residual income. Deal-slinging hustlers will love this type of role but relationship-builder sales types often get frustrated over time. It's no mystery that this type of sale is a grind. Some of the biggest challenges in selling at ADP are poor client service support (you will constantly have to deal with client issues), horrendous implementation due to overworked/understaffed implementation teams (keep in mind your commission comes down if a new client doesn't continuously process for 6 months or never starts); and lack of product innovation (competitors are offering the same thing for less expensive). Much of this red tape significantly distracts the salesforce from driving more sales. The ADP brand perception is slowly deteriorating in the marketplace due to these issues. Executive-level management recognizes these problems but ADP takes a really long time to make changes and sometimes employees wonder if fixing these problems is truly a top priority. For this reason, ADP does a great job on the front-end (i.e., training, culture, etc) but slacks on the back-end (i.e., client support, internal red tape, etc) leading to employee turnover. You will meet many great sales professionals at ADP; some will grow within the company and many will move on.
