Great sales experience that builds the foundation for the rest of your career - Major Accounts District Manager ADP Employee Review

4.0
Feb 22, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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.

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5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great job and learned a lot

Cons

Work life balance/ lot of hours

2.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Established company with a long history and relatively stable business operations. - Provides a sense of job stability compared to many organizations navigating rapid changes in the current AI-driven market. - Lower risk of frequent restructuring or large-scale layoffs than many high-growth technology companies. - Opportunity to work with experienced employees who have deep institutional and domain knowledge. - Predictable work environment that may appeal to individuals seeking long-term stability over rapid change. - Strong choice for professionals who value job security and a steady career path in an uncertain economic climate.

Cons

- Documentation is limited or rusted, and many operational processes lack clear runbooks or standardized procedures, making onboarding and troubleshooting more difficult than necessary. - If you're coming from a modern, fast-paced engineering environment, the organization may feel behind current industry practices and tooling. - Internal politics can sometimes outweigh technical merit or execution. - There are teams with very long-tenured employees where change and innovation can be difficult to drive. - Decision-making often involves multiple layers of approval, resulting in significant bureaucracy and slower execution. - Processes can move slowly, and collaboration is not always transparent across teams, leading to inefficiencies and occasional confusion around ownership. - In some areas, roles, responsibilities, and operational processes are not clearly defined, creating unnecessary chaos and inconsistent ways of working. - Engineering standards and best practices vary considerably between teams, making cross-team collaboration challenging. - Organizational change tends to happen slowly, which can be frustrating for employees who are focused on modernization, automation, and continuous improvement.

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