customer service representative

customer service/sales representative

warehouse/driver

inside sales representative

stocking associate

Applied Industrial Technologies

I will start with the bad since it outweighs the good by far. 

Early on this company was great to work for but over the years they have become greedy and stubborn.  I say they referring to those in positions above the GM position because that seems to be where the roadblocks are.  It could be those in Cleveland but we will never know.   There are several branches that are extremely short handed and there is no urgency or real plan to strengthen growing branches nor retain key employees that have worked hard to get Applied where they are today all while more and more are searching for a trustworthy distributor.  If you have been around this type of job you will realize quickly that everyone is just a number.  There will be a limit to the amount of  relationships and trust you can build simply because there isn’t any support from upper management to provide you with support the at your branch.  You work to maintain, grow and build relationships only to find yourself behind on a daily basis trying to take on the extra requests because most have too much on their plate to help and as we all know, customers will find someone else that can take care of their needs in a timely manner and there goes all the hard work and it’s because they want to pad their pockets at the upper management level instead  of providing support at the branch level and you will be the one left feeling like a failure because they don’t see and talk to customers on a daily basis.  They just see that the reports are green and expect the branches to keep slaving away.  For those of you that have nothing but good things to say about this company I am highly jealous of you and am glad you are/were able to see a different side.  The truth is companies go to YOU because of what you can do for them. It isn’t the name of the distributor and they will possibly realize it after it’s too late.  Call around to different locations if you are interested in this company because if you are good at what you do and care about what you accomplish you will be let down quickly and treated as replaceable. 

A typical day of work: I wouldn't know, I was never fully hired. 
What I believe I learned: Applied has really stepped up their ghost job game, they actually contact you now and chew up days of your time, give the impression that they're really on your team, will move heaven and earth to try to get you on board...and then pull the rug out from under you several days later on a fascinating technicality, such as "you have the wrong color eyes!" or "your shoes weren't tied correctly!". 
Management: I am reminded of the book "Catch 22", where you have multiple characters all sort of tripping over themselves in increasingly concerning ways, it's difficult to believe that this is the current state of business here in the states, but no, the interesting part is this is actually considered to be normal, and management has pretty much zero idea that anything might be wrong.
Workplace culture: I encountered a very frustrated and overworked young man upon entering the business for the first time, and my soon-not-to-be hiring manager was a busybody that couldn't describe with any clarity what I was supposed to be doing, other than "you have to be organized". 
The hardest part of the job: I am still desperately searching for other work because of Applied's questionable shenanigans and have lost several days in the process
The most enjoyable part of the job: Dodging a fast projectile and knowing that they lost out on a great lifetime employee, all because of an HR lady with maybe three or four years of experience can upend everything with a simple "no" despite several other people on the ground supposedly demanding that I be hired...

This company itself is a great company to work for. However, this Service Center was completely understaffed, the Manager would constantly degrade my male coworker. He was very uncomfortably chummy with the female Account Manager. It was very poorly run and for having only 4 employees at this service center it was the most drama I've ever dealt with. It was pretty much 2 people seeking the managers approval soooo much that it just became a tattle tale game of who did what so they could make themselves look better! The manager was constantly upset and loved to hear himself talk so we would end up having at least 1 meeting a day and it would last anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours or more. Often where he was screaming at the top of his lungs and degrading another emloyee in front of everyone else. I witnessed him take a phone and bust it completely in half, walk by a tall filing cabinet out in the warehouse and unexpectly punch it because he was so angry. The last day I was there the Manager and 2 other employees called me in the office and accused me of tattling on them about the drama there to the SAP trainers that were at the service center that week. The only reason those trainers knew anything was because we were in hostile meetings every day while they had to wait in the break room until we were ready to be trained. Right before I made the decision to leave I finally stood up for myself which led to him standing over me sitting in my chair, slammed his hand on my desk, called me stupid and told me to shut up. Best decision I've ever made to get up and walk out of that place!

What is the best part of working at the company?
Great supervisor. Doing the duties required meeting new people when dealing with customers. Layer back and professional employees and supervisors. Staff easy to work with and to get along with. Really a great place to work. Would have never left if the pay had been better and could have had cooperation look at making a between schedule because the place could have operated just fine on a 4 10 hour a day work schedule. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There really wasn’t much stress. Maybe just learning all the different products that we sold and due to times that delivery trucks would show up during the day made it some stressful to receive and inventory everything before end of shift 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. Just do your job and what is expected of you and your supervisors are happy. There was no not picking . Very friendly and professional place to work. Really enjoyed working there and for the company. A pleasant place to work. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Usually steady, there was plenty of work to be done not much down time which is great. I like to stay busy. Morning inventory conducted. Pulled orders and made deliveries to different locations 3 to 4 days a week. Unloaded delivery trucks and inventoried products. Pulled orders and stocked shelves. Cleaned and moved stuff as needed.

Not sure where to start... The manager was HORRIBLE and there just wasn't any company "culture". There's no employee stock purchase plan and the 401(k) is mediocre, at best. Basically as a "Customer Service Sales Rep", you're a customer service agent. There's no sales involved, don't fool yourself. You enter fax orders, email orders and help customers at the counter. ZERO training on the products. Good luck finding a bearing or belt when you have no idea what you're looking at. I'd always just refer the customer to a competitor. Secretly I enjoyed that. My location was AGONIZINGLY SLOOOOOOW. I'm really amazed it's even open as they really only had two account that paid the bills - lose one and it's lights out, literally. The guy I worked with was super cool, he's the only reason I enjoyed working there. The manager was something else - no sales ability and openly cussed and tried to manager by intimidation. I've never seen anything like it. I worked as a temp and would've turned down an "opportunity" to work there permanently. I saw no room for career growth whatsoever, nor would I want to. It's just a job and a place to work.  I can't say I approve of the CEO as the only communication was a generic "Here's to a great 2019!!" end of year email. I don't even know his/her name? That tells you something right there. HUGE red flag about company culture.

Web maintenance, developing new websites and redesigning legacy websites, improving processes, liaising between marketing and IT, managing contractors, and supporting end users are some of the daily tasks.

Learned SAP Commerce, HubSpot, Cloudflare, Salesforce, and many other applications.

Some Directors/Managers are great, and some are just doing what they can to stay there forever.

The culture is different for each department, but it is friendly overall.

The hardest part was changing platforms at the last minute, upgrading legacy platforms without documentation, and reorgs.

Our new outstanding department director was there briefly, but the old Director returned after we had completed all the heavy lifting for a massive website upgrade, which resulted in five of our eight very talented department employees leaving quickly. Certain Directors stay at the Company forever and abandon departments, leaving new employees to figure out their mess without documentation. Then, certain Directors return to the department after the new team fixed their legacy mess.

The most enjoyable part was the team our outstanding Director built and what we accomplished together!
 

Was with Applied for over one year as a sales and service rep. Great entry level position to build experience in sales and customer service. The company overall is pretty good with several great benefits and learning experiences. 

This branch is very busy and consists of a lot of unreal expectations and is a sell, sell, sell style environment. The training if you can call it "training" is non existent for the over 5 million products sold. This causes things to be stressful and new people ussually disappoint customers. Upper management then blames the employees. Several corporate viruses and a slow system add to the stress. Inaccurate descriptions and pictures on the website just add to the nonsence. Too many responsibilities and most employees get burned out but are required to suck it up, with no support and get micromanaged every 60 seconds.

The current SCM is great. The GM, where do I start. Disrespectful, no leadership at all, very difficult to work for, talks down to employees. All about the money. Same things another reviewer said. But money talks so they won't be replaced.

Pros:
1. Good Co-workers:  the people you work with are very good people.

Cons:
1. Jobs you do outside what you are hired to do. From the time I was given information about this job from a military recruit to the time after onboarding, I was being hired for a certain area and when it came down to the what was actually required you have extensive overnight and out of region travel. The company hired me for a job and was routinely doing something else and when asked about it, they tell you something completely erroneous. Saying this is what you were hired for.  Even showed a copy of the job description to HR and they refused to acknowledge that job posting even existed.  

2. The company plays favoritism towards certain individuals. 5 Current employees, refuse to travel at all and that is accepted, so the remaining have to do all the traveling.

3. Pay is not equal to what you would be getting with other companies for doing the same job.

4. Bad Benefits, bad short term disability.

5. Not Employee friendly all about making 40% profit margin on all jobs.


Recommendations:
Do not lie to potential employees on what the job is.  Tell employees about the amount of travel required and how it is not a family-friendly, employee-friendly, or even pay friendly position.

Worked with the Finance team and to say that their processes and procedures could be improved is an understatement. This is still a largely paper focused company which is a waste of time and resources.  There is no sense in urgency to fix any known issues.  Accounts payable has one primary responsibility to pay invoices and yet they can’t seem to get their arms around the process, whether it’s not having correct pay methods or checks don’t actually have a complete address printed or the time that someone changed something internally and checks were just being mailed to weird random places. I don’t think the IT team is working with the best and brightest. It was a constant struggle of being yelled at and put on credit hold by vendors. Good luck trying to get responses from the sites who didn’t know how to operate the systems  and only cared about making the sale not paying for the goods that they have sold. I was told during my interview that no one works from home but somehow people that have issues with elder or child care get to work from home. Some people that have Covid were able to work from home but some people that had Covid or not and had to use their own time or take unpaid time.

My typical day at work started with doing the daily inventory count. I would then do the receiving of parts when needed. The work day consisted of making calls to vendors regarding products, orders, delivery dates, shipping costs. Also called on customers to give them information on new products that would benefit their company and try to make sales from that call. I took inbound calls during the day from customers regarding their orders and other inquiries. I learned so much about the industrial world of motors, bearings, chain, belting and the types of products used in the different industrial businesses.
For me the hardest part of the job was doing deliveries to the customers. Oftentimes, the delivery involved several steps to get the product to the customer, such as: showing identification, signing in/signing out, presiding over the delivery, physical demands. I enjoy being in the field of Customer Service and Sales, and working at Applied Industrial Technologies always challenged me to be that good representative of the company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$19.96 per hour
Customer service/sales representative 3 salaries reported	$15.42 per hour
Warehouse/driver 2 salaries reported	$18.25 per hour
Inside sales representative 1 salary reported	$18.50 per hour
Stocking associate 2 salaries reported	$35.00 per hour

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