audio visual technician

audio visual engineer

project manager

project engineer

recruiter

Ford Audio Video

Got offered a position for Project Manager and was excited to start until looked over the benefits offered. First thing that shocked me was that for a position that requires you to be on the road 50-75% of the time for minimum 1-2 weeks at at time they only give 7 days PTO during first year. So for a company that requires so much of your time, which I was fine with, they don't give you any back to reconnect with family. Tried to negotiate they stayed firm declined the offer. Other issues after receiving the offer were only 50% 401k match that takes 6 YEARS to fully vest, way longer than any other company I've worked for. Use of own vehicle was also to be used for driving to some job sites. Petty items in employee handbook like if you quit within 2 weeks of a paid holiday they'd reclaim the holiday pay, if quit or fired while on jobsite away from home you had to pay to get home, also stated that annual reviews were only done if asked for and no annual raises unless asked for and granted based on their judgement. Also could be assigned to jobsites for 3+ weeks despite during interview told repeatedly 1-2 weeks and if you wanted to come home for the weekends on these longer jobs need approval and your expense to come home. For a company that talked so much about not being the cheapest to the customer and putting on superior product they appear to only want to use the extra profit for the owners. Overall just got impression this would be the type of company to expect everything from employee while giving back nothing and declined the job.

Poor management. High turnover. No training. Long work hours. Company culture is work, work, work. No concern for families or family life. Insurance is extremely expensive. You get 3 weeks of paid vacation after 15 years of service. You won't be there that long. Estimation for jobs takes 3 to 4 weeks, so your customers have plenty of time to shop around or change their mind. Proposals are not competitively priced on small jobs to win, yet on million dollar jobs the margins are so low that the company will cut out the sales person altogether. So you go and win a million dollar job, chances are you won't be paid a dollar because the company will drop the margins to win the big name account. They don't care about how much money you make. The company uses an outdated computer system that is extremely slow. You will have a desk from the 60's and you won't ever want a customer to come to the office. Customer follow up is limited to phone calls and single emails. They have no follow up system in place. The phones do not ring with leads that often. The company does minimal paid advertising so account executives are responsible to find every lead.

The company requires you to agree to 70% travel before even getting a job interview. Most places are extremely close to that 70% if not more. The training Ford gives is a great way to learn everything in your day to day working. Sadly the upper management doesn’t care about the people who go in and install the actual products they’re selling. You can have a schedule set on Monday and by Friday you could be going out of town for 2+ weeks will little more than a possible email about travel arrangements. The communication in the company differs depending on what division you’re working in as well. Some divisions are great in making sure you have everything to succeed and in others it’s a challenge even getting basic answers to questions. All in upper management needs to understand/remember who it is that actually gets the job done, and make sure the install crews are properly compensated. Oh and profit sharing as a Technician is a joke, only about 1/20 of what a JS/PM makes. 

SENIOR MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY LIED TO ME AT HIRING.

My BONUS WAS WITHHELD AFTER I WAS given my 2 week termination notice and I was not paid bonus money I was owed.

I WORKED 4.5 YRS and was NEVER GIVEN A RAISE DURING THIS TIME. I  HAD ONE EMPLOYEE REVIEW IN 4.5 YRS. NOT GIVEN A REASON FOR THE TERMINATION. (I believe it was due to that at 5 yrs. of employment the company POLICY is that they will pay for your medical insurance. Very few ever make it to 5 yrs. Most employees quit due to poor working conditions/treatment within their 1st yr.) In my short time with the company I saw constant employee turnover at every position in the company. In 35 yrs of employment experience I have never seen this much employee turnover at any other company.

Great co-workers, but they don't LAST very long.  Most people stay and work for these people for the job experience and not the pay or the company benefits. Don't expect support from your boss. Employee morale is not of interest to management.

If you enjoy being controlled in how you do your job and don't enjoy thinking, then this is the job for you.





The job was undersold during the interview. No formal training. It  literally consisted of listening to someone else take some calls and then management wanted you to take calls by the end of your first day. High turnover in this customer care position for a reason. As customer care you are responsible for scheduling 8 techs (all introverts) to fix 300+ service calls(no exaggeration) that are super urgent that cover 4 states. It is overwhelming on another level. The VP of the company will call you out and embarrass you on a daily meeting held every morning at 9am. Morale amongst CC agents is destroyed for the rest of the day and we confide in each other. The company is stretched thin and takes on more business than they can handle. Awesome coworkers. When i resigned I slept better and felt like I left a prison. Last thing I'll say is someone in management I wont say who, told me as advice to "fake it till you make it" when it comes to dealing with customers and prospective customers. If the customer ask if we provide a service just tell them yes. That spoke volumes about Ford AV.

The company has a propensity to say they have processes in place that allow a sales person to find opportunities and then hand them off to other support functions, however my personal experience is that might be reality as an associate that works within a regional office but in emerging markets this support is non existent. 

Unfortunately as a "Sole" entity in a non support market means you have to beg and plead to get opportunities thru the system (sometimes longer than a month to get a customers proposal completed) with daily extensive personnel chasing to ensure anything  is even happening. 

I personally found that my job duties were not exclusive to developing opportunities, but assisting in customer service, project installs and warranty service, post install customer training etc....leaving very little time to cultivate new opportunities.

Your coworkers?  Awesome. 
Your supervisors?  Knowledgeable and helpful
The work itself?   Lots of fun

Everything else?  Bleh

They claim to give you industry standard pay.  But that's a joke. Raises are pathetic. Their appreciation for their employees is dismal.  They make you review your peers and then turn around and use that as ammunition against them. They weigh the smallest negatives 100 times over any compliments.  If you can keep your head really really low maybe you'll be OK.  Honestly though,  steer clear. 

The company claims to "help people communicate",  and inside of your first month your peers will reveal to you that Ford has no idea how to communicate amongst itself.  Jobs don't have the needed materials on time, or when they do they don't get the necessary labor. Etc etc

This company has a huge turn over rate. The owner is way to involved in everything. Everyday people go into work walking on egg shells because anything will cause the owner to have a meeting and fire you. Something as small as spelling a word wrong in a document can cause a 2 hour meeting which can lead to you being fired. Very stressful job because of this fact. I had a manager who the owner favored who would constantly stand behind me and just watch me work and belittle my spouse. I brought this to HR attention and I was told the manager is learning how to deal with people so to have patience. Everything kept getting worse when I finally decided to leave. My suggestion, do not work for this company. I worked here for 2 years and the only good thing that came out of it is I recieved a paycheck.

I had high expectations when I started with this company, but became disillusioned by the total chaos I encountered.  Management cannot organize anything.  My first day there one of the senior supervisors lit into all the installers about "finding things to do" when they are at the office.  ie replacing light bulbs, taking out trash etc.  Our installers were great and would gladly do any task, but there was no need for the drill sergeant approach.  I told the jerk to do his job and get them out in the field where they belonged.  The only thing that keeps that business alive is a lot of great people covering for bad managers, but they don't last long.  The good engineers and installers usually go elsewhere.  Also, their pay and vacation benefits are among the worst I have encountered.

Typical day is easy, with mostly manageable workload. Innovation is significantly slower than sales and the company often bites off more than it can chew. Managers are NOT leaders, whatsoever and they are okay with that. Culture is defined by the people exclusively and is actively discouraged by corporate. I get to work with some customers and projects that are very cool and brag-worthy. I enjoy the people I work with and have built strong connections with some. Turnover is extremely high so advancement at low levels is easy but strong experience is less common.

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