customer specialist

sales consultant

automotive technician

customer service representative

inventory associate

CarMax

This place used to be a great place to work, very easy work and good people. I’ll speak mostly on the operations side of things & Inventory as those are where I have the most experience here. The last few years it has rapidly gone down hill and good managers fled, new ones came in and remaining bad ones got promoted. 

The level of incompetence on a management level is honestly hard to comprehend. I myself wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t there to witness it first hand. I’ll try and give a brief overview of the managers you’ll unfortunately have to deal with if you decide to work here. 

Starting with the LGM, in my brief experience with her but shared with many other; she’ll tell you everything you want to hear to your face but ultimately do nothing she’s promised. Now this is where it starts to get hard to believe but this is all truth(who could make this up anyways?)

The operations manger is a gambling addict with a drinking problem(you can check his criminal records). He has on numerous occasions been at work smelling of alcohol. He has literally been seen drinking in the associate parking lot in his carmax demo car, as well as passed out in this car. These incidents have been reported by multiple people on several occasions but as you’ll learn if you work here the managers look out for each other meaning nothing was done. The way they look out for each other is like a little cult of stupidity. This operation manager is also rarely even at work, we guessed he maybe works 25hrs a week at most and is completely oblivious to what actually goes on. We would often joke wishing we had his schedule. I(like many others) have on many occasions had early morning meetings scheduled with him that he has canceled the night before because he was up too late “drinking and watching the game”(I have Texts to prove this). Hard to believe I know and this is the guy that’s supposed to be in charge of all of operators.

Another manger the RPM I’ll keep it short for him as his wife is divorcing him because he spends all his time there at carmax yet he actually gets nothing done. This guy drank the cool aid and asked for more he’s that “carmax”. He only cares about carmax(I mean he’s sacrificed his marriage) not the associates, he’ll do anything to make himself look good. We had an OSHA complaint that later shut down a photo booth room for health concerns that when brought to his attention he still forced associates in the room. These associates complained of headaches and nausea yet he still demanded they take photos in this room. He was worried about a report that shows the amount of cars that need photos being too large and making him look bad over the healthy and safety of his employees. He fired one associate that night for not going into the photo booth after he himself said he wouldn’t go in as it wasn’t his responsibility(he knew of the health concerns). There’s a lot more you’ll see if you take this job.

The most incompetent manager you’ll have to deal with is the inventory manager, but he’s actually a cosmetic supervisor. See he was so incompetent he failed as a cosmetic supervisor, got moved to a tech manager, failed at that and was then moved to an inventory manager. A position that doesn’t even exist here this is why he’s called the inventory manager but in the system as a cosmetic supervisor. Why would they do this? Well as a mentioned the managers are very loyal to each other(he’s a old friend of the operations manger too). His level of incompetence is very difficult to fathom it’s actually very comical if you didn’t have to work with him. He doesn’t know how to speak with people....he literally had to read his name off of a note card the first time he addressed the inventory team. He’s very awkward and will shuffle papers and adjust his hat endlessly when you ask him something difficult. When it gets busy he’ll just pace back and forth in a panic not doing any work at all. Like I said it’s rather comical. He doesn’t know even the simplest of procedures or responsibilities his associates do. He’s a pawn to the other managers. They make him do the dirty work they don’t want to do, he’s too dumb to know better it’s kind of sad and we used to feel bad for him(we all were certain he was on the spectrum). The worst thing about this inventory manager is he will hide information from you, lie to your face and behind your back to make himself look good. I personally had this manager forge my signature and initials on a carmax document. I reported it and nothing was done because as I mentioned the managers always side with each other.

The managers will change your schedule with short or no notice, say it’s ok if you call out or come in late, then write you up for it. They’ll adjust your pay without your notice and remove overtime pay(if you do work here check every pay stub!)The managers are a laughingstock throughout all the departments and aren’t respected by anyone, often joking about their stupidity.

In the last few months there has been a mass exodus out of is place. The worst part I think about this job now is that the managers will put a target on your back if you say anything to oppose them. Once they’re upset with you you’re as good as gone. They’ll go out of their way to set you up for failure and blame their own shortcomings on you. If they can’t get anything on you they’ll simply lie. Even if you’re speaking out on something you should, like the health & safety concerns in the photo booth room I mentioned before. Those that spoke out were targeted and fired or forced to resign simply for doing what was right. 

I could continue on and on about how bad this place has become. If you don’t mind being lied to, taken advantage of, asked to do more than you’re paid and enjoy listening to incompetent uneducated leadership less quality managers this is your place or if you just want to see stupidity at it’s finest for a while. If you like a good, fun, honest and enjoyable work environment this is not your place. But like I said in the beginning this is just the operations side of things, sales doesn’t seem as bad(I mean it literally can’t be). 

I can say that, as a very well-seasoned and successful salesperson, that Carmax provides excellent training and a very thoroughly tested and refined process for the discovery, progression and closing aspects of a customer interaction, throughout the sales process. 

   Unfortunately, where they fall on their face is just about everywhere else!  To be fair, I am referring specifically to Naples and SWFL stores, so things may be a little different in other locations, due, in large part, to the very seasonal nature of our market.
Having said that, I firmly believe that Carmax's approach to "Commission-Only" compensation is categorically anemic, unfair, underwhelming, and is misrepresented at the very interview, when hired.  It will take a long time (years) to earn a decent salary and not have to work every day -- all day!  This compensation is structure is also completely and utterly at odds with it's highly touted "culture of integrity" that it promotes with all of it's associates, especially those in sales.  This is because it foments the frustrations and motivations-by-desperation of an otherwise successful salesperson (earning commision-only) having to depend on all of the other apathetic departments, staffed by lackluster associates.  Moreover, these associates, who are supposed to move the product (a used car) though the process and out the door, have absolutely no sense of urgency or performance initiative, other than just to get through the day and earn their own minimal ($8- $14) hourly wages.

   In short, no one employed by Carmax, managers included, is earning enough to be satisfied.  This is absolutely palpable and it equates to many hard-fought deals walking out the door and going elsewhere due to the inadequacies and lack of initiative or follow-through, with nothing to show for it other than time not-well-spent.

 That means that there are far too many 11-hour days where you have earned ZERO dollars -- sometimes several in a row.  Thusly, Carmax was hands-down, THE LEAST rewarding and MOST frustrating job that I have ever had in my life.  I worked there during the slow summer months and so you end up working 7 days a week/ 8 - 11 hours a day, just to keep your deals from being split with another consultant, or worse, getting "middled-out".  Without getting into specifics, the amount of work that one has to do to complete a sale vs. the amount of compensation for each is ridiculous.  It is terrible living, from the standpoint or work/life balance and on top of that, you have 2 to 4 managers (or more, when you include the other dept's) examining and criticizing every word and action that you do -- ALL day long -- EVERY day!  This job is probably terrific for a retired or semi-retired older person, who doesn't depend on the money, but just likes to get out of the house and interact with people and truly enjoys the prospect of honestly "helping customers on their journey" through a relatively solid and ethical sales process, as compared to the typical used car market.  Selling used cars isn't easy and admittedly Carmax does it decidedly different, while also doing a  pretty good job at setting high standards (while not always meeting them) and treating their customers with respect.  Inshort, Carmax is a great place to buy a car -- but they are frustratingly cheap with both their compensation plan and their complete inability to deviate from their strict corporate policies to get a deal done (even when things get screwed up)

   Perhaps, if they just paid their sales consultants even a small stipend for every day that they worked (say enough to, at least, pay for the fuel it takes to get to & from the store), than it might be enough to get a person through 3-hrs of standing On-Point, watching an empty parking lot, until someone comes in for a free appraisal, which Carmax will lowball, sending you back to the end of a long line of other consultants waiting for a bite of the rare apple.  I would not recommend this job to anyone who wants to be able to do anything other than work all the time and earn enough to "supplement: some other form of income like a pension, trust-fund, or other form of base annuity.  So, at the initial interview, when you're told that "if you're any good", you should be able to make $45 or $50-grand or more (as was I)...  Do NOT believe it, as it's totally NOT true and the manager telling you this knows it.  FACT:  Very good, very professional and skilled consultants, who had been there for 3 years or more, and just got into the "Presidents Club" level, were not breaking the $48-Grand mark!  That is a fact and it's PATHETIC!

Oh, and just for the record, I was consistently either in, or close to, the Top-5 (out of some 16 - 20) consultants every month, from my 3rd month until the time I left and honestly, I did not bring home two paychecks in a row that had a comma in the number.  That's really the main reason why this job is NOT for anyone who needs to earn what they're really worth at an otherwise intense and demanding sales job.

Carmax in not your traditional sales atmosphere you would find at a traditional dealership. Ive had about 5 years previous traditional car dealer experience. This is really the only one "Pro" I can think about working here. They teach you to sell "with the customer in mind". This is great as it teaches in my opinion the best way to sell.

 Ive sold at other places and they teach old school slimy techniques to sell. Those are outdated and everyone knows what your doing, leaving you looking like a fool. 

If you do what the sales video's teach at Carmax, use their lingo, you will learn to combine true customer service, sales skills and the ability to overcome most sales objections and lead yourself to be a solid salesman. After that it just goes down hill . 

Management is the biggest issue in all departments. No one wants to do their job. Every time you need assistance with a customer they just tell you to look at guidelines. They don't like to get off their chairs. And you will try to solve the issues after being rejected by sales management. 

You will go to other department heads to try to resolve the issues, and because it not their department they say "its not my department" and you just go in circles getting nothing done. 
The customer then gets mad, you have to deal with the drama because sales management does not want to talk to customers. I went to the proper routes to try to have these issues resolved multiple times and nothing changed. 

I know CarMax sells "used" Cars and you have to set expectations but my good golly geee wiz are their cars always broken and the flow to have that resolved always falls on the sales agent. With nobody wanting to help you get the car fixed. Because "getting cars on the lot is more important" than a BUYING CUSTOMER NOW. It blows my mind. 

 The best part is WHEN YOU HAVE A BUYING CUSTOMER that wants to buy a car with something broken on it and they are willing to wait to have it repaired again, 

And I say "Again" ,because they preach all these inspections, warranties blah blah blah  ect.. but its broke when it gets put on the lot when it should have been checked. 

When you go yourself to try to get it fixed, you will be met with its not my job / not my department. Again going in circles nothing getting done. This went on for years. Again went to proper routes to resolve, nothing gets fixed operational wise. 

Operations, on who does what and command flow is shot at this place and all the departments fight over who has to do what, leaving nobody wanting to do anything. 

Good luck trying to leave on time, they will guilt trip you on not leaving, say inappropriate and rude things for you to not leave. Also you will have to fight management to eat lunch while managers sit back and eat in their office. So many times people with health issues would not eat due to management. It was nuts. I could go on and on about that.

The way management would speak to you was very condescending and made you feel inferior. They hold grudges and block you from deals as they have to approve them.  You will find that in all real sales environments but "CarMax is different", that is a false statement. Its alot lighter than a traditional dealership but its not what they make it seem through all their sales training videos and promotion. you learn that quick. 

If you've been in sales you already know the environment in any sales job is cut throat. CarMax is a lighter sales environment, but not all shiny and perfect like they portray. Its just repackaged and a bit lighter. 

CarMax recently changed how they operate. They use call centers now and are doing what all corporate retail does best, automate all positions and have you do everything and make no money. 

Be prepared to walk customers through appraisals, secure vehicles on trades , financing, sell cars , sign , test drive, organize lot, try to get broken stuff fixed, ect ect.. you do so much for very little compensation on the car. 

All sales people said compensation dropped and you do more work. Carmax rebuttals and says the call center now does "half your job for you" . But most of the time you have to undo all the damage the call center did. Messed up financing , wrong cars transferred , car not transferred , credit ran 1,000 times. told them all the wrong things on how the business operates. It goes on and on.

Your main job here is cleaning up messes. 

Over all great entry to learn sales, 1 maybe 2 years max then get out, finder a better paying and better work life balance. 

sales techniques are solid, everything else is a mess. 

I have former colleagues and friends who are employed with Carmax and they have always talked about how great the culture is. How the company does things for them and their families. How understanding the company is across the board and willing to help their associates not only in a time of need but give them the tools and resources they need to succeed and grow. While I can’t speak for the store locations I will say the CarMax CEC is not that. While the center is very much a part of Carmax the way business is operated is absolutely appalling. The majority of the management team were transferred from the stores and still have the mentality that they are at the store when it comes to conflict resolution with customers. When there is an issue they take the side of the stores over trying to right the wrongs done by sneaky store associates and reassure the CXC they have on staff. The HR rep is a complete waste of HR, in this case, it should stand for hardly reliable as she will listen to your concerns and tell everyone your business or refer you to the company website for guidance with your concerns instead of offering to help search and see what’s available to you as an employee. There is a female senior manager that is wildly unprofessional in that she uses profanity openly and makes inappropriate advances and comments towards associates making them completely uncomfortable. Another male senior manager is only concerned about one thing and that is Carmax. There are over 300 employees on staff and we all have lives outside of Carmax. When going to him with concerns and seeking help or resources he solution offered is to get back on the phone and sell some cars (his words exactly). The top manager in the center is an absolute sexist. He favors working with and talking to the male associates over the female associates. The attendance policy is a complete sham. If you are a minute late you receive an occurrence - no matter if you are stuck on the freeway due to an accident or get in an accident yourself - occurrence. You can have the flu and be so contagious the hospital recommends you take 3 days to recover if you were scheduled in those three days you will receive three occurrences. Need to rush out and get your sick child - occurrence. You can of course use sick time for these but the rate of accrual is so slow you never have enough time to use. 

While COVID has taken the world by storm CarMax has done nothing for its call center except offer to send you home with an occurrence should you find you have any symptoms of coronavirus. While the stores closed down to protect their staff and customers, the CEC remained open and at full capacity with desk shuffling done to add ‘social distancing’. When there were confirmed cases the center remained open as per HR a deep cleaning is done nightly however the cleaning staff is so negligent they don’t even change the trash can liners at our desks so I’m not sure how that is considered a deep clean. Someone next to you could go out due to contracting the virus and there would not be any precautions taken to make sure you were made aware or given quarantine time unless you ask. Many of us found out via texts from the person or Facebook posts that a deskmate had COVID and then and only then were we given a straight answer of how we may be at risk. HR even went as far as to say that the cases at the CEC originated from the persons home so we would continue to be open. 

It saddens me that I didn’t get to experience the CarMax my peers spoke of in the store. I refused to put myself and my family at risk by going into a call center of 300 and still hiring for more. 

Stay away from the CEC - CXC & CXA positions if you care about your wellbeing and sanity. The stress is not worth it. 

Initially Sales Consultants were allotted 3 hours in "e-office" where consultants would accept "random" leads from potential car buyers. Afterwards we would work the floor and assist walking customers for another 6 hours. You were allowed 45mins for lunch but you are not urged to take a lunch. They rather you work 9hours straight which we would consequently have to do in order to have a chance at making a reasonable amount of commission.

The position is commission based with subsidy for Full-Time associates. Consultants are not paid a percentage of the vehicle price only a flat unit rate of $160.00 per unit. There is opportunity to reach a higher tear maxing at $200 per unit but it is comprehensive and you can easily fall back to the first tier. 

For example, if a consultant is not able to make any commission during a 2 week period they would receive a check based on the average of hours they worked that pay period at a rate of 7.25. This averages to about $500. The catch is once you make commissions the following pay period you have to pay the $500 back from the pay period before. So essentially its legalized share cropping. 

To add to that, if a customer ever decides to return a car within the 7day return policy, your commission is taken away no matter the reason (I just didn't like it or... it drives funny at 60mph) for return and without regard to what commissions you accumulated afterwards. Managers would make some effort to inform you of a return but many times they failed to do so. 

Recently the company has decided to open call centers where they pay hourly workers to do the job of the in-house consultants. it has been organized in a fashion that lowers the consultants opportunity to sell as well as their overall potential earning. For example, if a customer speaks with the call center one time before making it into the store an in-house consultant may be obligated to work with that customer throughout the entire process yet only has the potential to receive half the commission rate. Its highway robbery.

Even though your position is commissioned and does not pay you as a traditional car dealer would you are heavily micromanaged and harassed with petty write ups. The retention rate of consultants is horrible, there are always new faces and I've witnessed many veteran consultants who contribute much to the company get fired for any vague or even illogical reasons.

I learned the profit margins for vehicle flips can be very lucrative and that you really can't trust some businesses when it comes to earnestly standing behind their product. CarMax pushes a lot of cars through that shouldn't be and trap customers into dealing with mechanical issues with either a useless service plan or their own money.

Workplace culture does not promote self accountability, rather it places the blame on its lower level employees whom are either overworked or not consistently provided materials to do efficient work.

Hardest part of the job is to remain positive with customers while dealing with such micro management under such conditions. Its also hard to work for your customer when you have policies and manager's greed working against both yourself and the customer.

Most enjoyable part about the job was creating relationships with customers and fellow consultants.

I worked for CarMax for nearly 4 years. My time there was split pretty evenly between working in Sales and working in Purchasing. I held positions as a Sales Consultant, Appraisal Specialist, and Vehicle Condition Assessor. As such I can speak knowledably about the customer facing and non customer facing sides of the business. I hope that this review is of some help to prospective and current employees down the road.

In terms of pros for being an employee I would say the benefits are the biggest. CarMax does a 6% 401k match after 90 days of employment. After a year as an employee your eligible for the employee stock purchase plan where you can buy company stock at a 15% discount. The medical, vision and dental insurance are all decent as well. They offer multiple medical providers to choose from including Kaiser for California employees. They also offer tuition assistance up to $5250 a year for full-time employees if your interested in going to school. I would also add as pro that it was by far the most diverse workplace I've ever worked at. CarMax is very open to people of different professional backgrounds, races, religions, gender identities, etc.

In terms of cons I would say the biggest are pay, career advancement, training, and work life balance. Carmax's business model is based around buying and selling large volumes of vehicles. They make much less than a traditional dealer does per vehicle (generally around $2k). But they make up for this with staggering amounts of volume. This means that as a Sales Consultant you will be working with far more customers on average than a sales consultant at a traditional dealership. You will also be paid a significantly lower commission per car then a traditional dealer.

If you work in one of the other departments (Purchasing, Business Office, and Inventory) expect to be very busy. These departments handle the nuts and bolts of the business. Appraising and valuing cars, processing documents, shipping and cleaning vehicles. During my nearly 4 years working there I saw a ton of employee turn over, especially in these hourly positions. Between November 2020 and December 2021 over 80% of the staff in our department either quit the company or moved to other departments.

The turnover was caused by several things. Low wages for hourly associates (yearly pay increases were often in the 2%-3% range). Outdated or insufficient equipment and software needed to perform essential business tasks. Limited ability to grow professionally within the company. Very heavy workloads in customer facing positions. The list goes on and on. To put it simply the business grew too quickly without enough of an investment in people, training, and resources.

I will say that the coworkers I had there were phenomenal. Had alot of good people I worked with. I will also say that working there you will grow your professional abilities. You'll be really good at diffusing customer situations, time management, and working in a fast paced environment. Skills that are undoubtedly useful at other companies. Overall though I would not recommend working for CarMax on the retail side of the business. They simply don't pay enough and ask too much of they're employees. Upward mobility within the company is very difficult and will often take several years. 


When I first started Carmax in 2004 I was very impressed with how well the company was run and felt good about the company's value and integrity.  I thoroughly believed in the product and felt good about what I was doing.  In recent years, Carmax has changed the quality standards on the cars and is not better than any other used car lot, may be even worse in some cases.  It has become so corporate that their policies are getting in the way of selling cars and offering a quality product. Service after the sale is horrible and a lot of times it reflects on you.  You are at the mercy of people that get paid by the hour and do not care if you are losing money because of them and do not treat the customer with the same importance that you do.  As a Sales Associate, you are 100% commission but you are not the only person controlling your paycheck.  There will be times when you have to either lose half a deal or come in on your day off because someone else didn't do their job correctly.  I was also at a store where the women are treated like second class citizens and not looked at as leaders, which goes against Carmax's culture.  If a woman speaks up or acts as an equal, they are looked at as if they are doing something wrong.  I was constantly harassed by a sales manager there for 6-7 years because his idea of "respect" is to cower to him.  He was constantly trying to get me fired after he asked me to be his boyfriend and I ignored him.  The store is also very cliquish and if you are not one of the clique, you are harassed.  In the support departments, new hires are coached on who to get along with and who not and are pressured to harass those who are not in the clique.  Management is included and it seems like they would be smart enough to take the high road but some are not and actually use their positions to intimidate and harass.  The company is so big that it is unaware of what goes on.  LGMs and Sales Managers have free reign to act however they want and will manipulate the truth.  Carmax prides itself of having a culture of integrity and treating everyone with respect but the culture is so geared towards young people that they use it to pass judgement on people that are not "cool and part of the clique"  and the policy is manipulated to harass people that are not in the clique.  The Sales Managers are about 50/50 with being competent and when you are really good at your job and know your stuff, it is very frustrating to deal with a so called leader that doesn't know what he is doing and then being scolded for speaking up.  I thoroughly enjoyed helping people and creating relationships was the most enjoyable part of the job.  On the other end, there are a lot of customers that will abuse you because they have been beaten up at other dealers. There are some incredibly crazy people out there that will abuse you and say anything, thinking that you are the same person that just treated them badly at another dealer and the sales managers are too inexperienced to handle them.

Worked at Carmax for over 5 years. The pay does not match the demands of the workload that they give you. They keep adding on more and more responsibilities but do not upgrade your pay. Their PTO it's horrible. They give you two days a year. And when they lay you off, they do it via voicemail. Saying that you'll receive a severance package on a certain day, and it never arrives. High turnover with managers I had nine managers in the five years that I was there, each trying to prove themselves to upper management by demanding more and more of you again with no pay raise. And when they decide to lay you off after five and a half years of working there they do it via voicemail. The cowards couldn't even talk to me on the phone, they did it via voicemail. That is a poor way to treat their employees when their culture of Carmax is to respect their employees and treat them with respect, and they say they value their employees so much. But that is not the case. I did not feel that I was treated with respect at all. They spout all of nonsense, and yet they treat you like you're nothing. Work here at your own  risk, however be prepared to be underpaid underappreciated and if you do not meet your metrics which are dumb and outdated you will get written up for no reason. It does not matter if you're good with your customers and you know your information, it's all about how much time you spend on the phone with the customer whether or not you get them over to sales which is their most important thing is getting somebody over to sales to sell them a subpar car. I met or exceeded my metrics every week. But that doesn't matter to them. They're more concerned about writing you up for not following their process guide which is very outdated and does not match the type of calls that come into a call center. If you ask to speak to upper management about a particular metric you are ignored they say they have an open door policy, that is a lie. They do not have an open door policy. They just want you to think that your opinion matters when it does not ever matter. Even if you're suggesting a better way to do the process, they ignore your messages and act like you didn't even send them. I thought CarMax was a great company to work for but in the past year and a half to two years everything went downhill. The way they treat you the way they make up their metrics which are not in line with the calls that the center received, they don't give you enough pto, you earn your sick time and your vacation time, but it's a very little hours each paycheck. I don't know why they have been awarded the top place to work for the past 20 years, because they treat who they want to treat with respect and disrespect those who they do not want to treat with respect. Work here at your own risk and own peril.

This company is very confusing. They claim to be about the employees and have a culture of communication and respect. I found this to be true - if you're a manager. Typically an average employee is better seen - working very had to appear busy even when it's a slow day, rather than heard. The company won't listen to any input that isn't from upper/senior management and treats you like another cog in the used-car profit making machine. Which is fine except they act like this job is a blessing and will make you rich and successful if you just put your heart and soul into it. I've seen people do just that, which just earns them extra stress, MAYBE a pat on the back, but definitely no pay raise.

Turnover is extremely high for both my department and the technicians. This was during a time of economic downturn folks, when people are desperate for work mind you. The management is so abusive and the work environment so demeaning that employees will do anything they can to get out. The management can be heard trash talking employees from every department when they meet in their office at all hours and pretend to have a "meeting". I have seen and heard this.

The company will spend thousands of dollars on sending in they're so called "experts" that tell us inefficient and downright WRONG ways to perform our job, yet try their best to hold back on promotions and benefits despite the used car sector experiencing growth and record profits. Literally all the experts do is babysit us, making sure we do things by the book, and report any errors (which go in your file and is held against us). We were also actively encouraged to "rat" each other out if someone went against company policy, no matter how minor (despite all of us openly acknowledging the company methods suck, and management refusing to change them). You really can't make this stuff up. They'll spend perhaps half our department's total payroll on these people and they do more harm than good.

All management interaction is strictly controlled by corporate paperwork as well, which is extremely odd and makes every meeting seem forced and fake. There is a list of can and can't do's controlled by corporate and the managers are powerless in many situations.

It's an okay place to work if you need a JOB but don't buy into any of their false hope of a promising career. If you're good at lying and putting on a front, you will see success. This company wants to suck you dry and make you feel like less of a person. If you choose to work there, lower your expectations and keep your head down... Good luck.

A workday would typically start with checking on CCM to see if there is any customers to follow up with before hitting the UPs list. 

Some Sales Consultants would frequent the UPs list and some would try and stay away from it. Job has too many rules and requirements of Consultants that it becomes stressful really, really fast. 

You may see a Consultant one day, and they're gone the next.
Management-

Most of them were inexperienced as Managers and seemed to be either overwhelmed or on edge all of the time. Blames Consultants when sales numbers aren't being met, but takes credit when they are. Talks about Consultants behind their backs which creates a weird tension between management and consultants. If your numbers are a bit low, even if the traffic is down for that time you are blamed for it and threatened to be put on a ridiculous program that is just their way of scaring you and preparing you to possibly be let go at some point.

They claim people don't get fired often, but at least 5 Consultants were fired in the few months I was there. The training program is ludicrous and takes 30 days before you go "live" watching other consultants sell things like an extended service plan(which they track your sales vigorously on). They claim that they don't want you to be a pushy car salesman, but that is a ruse. They absolutely do, and when they think you may have a potential sale, they will make you pull out all of the stops on the customer which is in fact, pushy.

The whole culture at CarMax is quite confusing. I often didn't know what to do at any given time, and was expected to know things nobody ever mentioned to me before. Nothing is really concrete, it all depends on who you talk to. One manager may say one thing, and you'll hear something completely different from another. The communication among managers is absolutely horrific. You can tell one manager a whole story about a customer, and literally 10 minutes later another manager will ask the same thing but you'll see the two managers who asked you the same question talking for hours. Just ridiculous.

If you have kids don't expect to see them if you're full-time at Carmax. The shifts for consultants are 9-6, 12-9 and 10-7 on Sundays. If you don't want to split a sale, you often have to come in on your days off to complete a sale. I never saw my 5-year-old son while doing this job and was forced to go part-time, which they offer but frown upon.

Overall, I couldn't tolerate the level of silliness and inconsistency at this job. Lots of weird personalities, inconsistent treatment and training led to a feeling of redundancy and ultimately dead-end like destitute employment. 

If you're under the age of 25 and looking to be a manager in sales and can handle stress give it a shot. Stay away if you're anyone else.

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Customer specialist 107 salaries reported	$24.56 per hour
Sales consultant 107 salaries reported	$19.79 per hour
Automotive technician 87 salaries reported	$40.19 per hour
Customer service representative 40 salaries reported	$24.97 per hour
Inventory associate 16 salaries reported	$23.24 per hour

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