Pros
If you are willing, you can learn a lot and fast, so it can be a good transition into retail and potential career change. Most of the people are really nice and friendly. Plenty of international transfers possibilities.
Cons
First of all be ready for politics. I saw an earlier post about no politics, complete nonsense. A lot of decisions will be taken behind closed doors. On top of that, most of the employees have limited expertise which means clinging at all cost to any piece of potentially valuable information. Information flow is very much exotic term there. A lot of talented people leave company very quickly, thus promotions are based more on seniority and perseverance than pure merit. Positive side of this, sky is the limit for job descriptions and role definitions as you will be able to fill the voids of knowledge gaps. However, don’t expect anyone to help out. You are very much on your own in this development process. Mostly because the proclaimed experts won’t have the expertise to go beyond the basics. Management itself is probably the weakest one I have witnessed so far. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few bright people, but most of the managers are either promoted too early or at the wrong position all together. Decision making seems to be an advance version of passing hot potato aka buried under never ending forwards, CC-ins and ‘let’s have a meeting about it’ conversations. All this leads to toxic culture (surprise surprise). The amount of pure paycheck collectors is astounding. Extra mile in hours after work definitely exist, but extra mile in creative thinking or stepping out of your role boundaries is an exception, not the rule. Finally, cliques are a way of life in Rakuten and most people will be aligned to some kind of gang. The saddest part – this behaviour is very much encouraged (special nomination for the best group during Christmas), which leads to highly fractured teams.
