it engineer

account manager

account executive

software engineer

infrastructure engineer

Nelnet

I am extremely surprised to see any positive reviews for Nelnet. Being familiar with their business practices, I don't think I'm going out on a limb wondering if some of these reviews are as fake as Nelnet's concern for the well being of the borrowers they serve or workers they employ.
The managers and team leads are all twenty and early thirty something's who, in most cases, have no prior experience managing anything. Management is my number one complaint about the work here. They stand around at their desks talking to each other about fantasy football or any number of topics completely unrelated to work. They are not held to the same standards as the employees they manage. They recite and regurgitate information passed down from their supervisors. My location in Omaha is filled with ineffectual middle managers who spend most of their days surfing the Internet, wandering around talking to other managers or taking 4 hours to make a single spreadsheet in Excel. One example of the visionary leadership in practice: the management team developed a contest for people on the phones wherein the winner would get to throw a pie at a team lead's face. Hilarious, right? Not only was this an asinine and poorly executed attempt to motivate employees to take more calls, but it simply served as a bro-y excuse for management to go outside, leaving the call center floor free of supervisors for twenty minutes at a time so they could laugh and high five each other when one of them got a pie thrown in their face. All of that is true. That is the type of workplace you're involved in at this company. It's absurd, right?
Employees are constantly outside smoking. I enjoy most of my co workers but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I can't recall a single positive break time conversation with another employee regarding the business processes and practices of this company. It's a negative and stressful work environment. Common complaints are about the constant need for MANDATORY overtime, constant, high turn over (a group of 30 people will be hired and I'm telling you, we will be lucky to hang on to ten of them for more than two months, hence the constant need for mandatory OT), terrible communication, convoluted training, poor workplace accommodations and uncaring, unchecked management. 
I stick with it because I'm in school and need something to pay the bills right now but I'm constantly looking for something else. I'm good at my job. I go into work and put on a happy face to get through the day. However, I don't feel secure. The other reviews are true. If you want to use the restroom you have to use break time from your alotted two fifteens. So if it takes you five minutes to run from your desk to the restroom, congrats, that counted as a break. And since we're on the subject of sh@!, I'd like to mention that the cleanliness of the restrooms vary between "just gross" to "that toilet has been out of order, stinking and stained with (you get it) for a month and no one has fixed it". Most people don't feel secure. I'm fascinated by it because for a company that needs bodies taking calls they have fired people, genuinely good workers, for very minor infractions. 
It takes a thick skin to do this job. I've had people threaten me, cry, beg and bargain and ask me point blank if I feel good doing my job or if I think it's fair. I never answer. I sit in silence thinking, "you're right, student loans are a predatory web and maze of misinformation, confusion and the company I work for does nothing to make it easier." My personal beliefs aside, I do try to help people but there is only so much you can explain over the phone and there is always the knowledge that as soon as a borrower understands one aspect of their loans, Nelnet or the dept of ed will implement a new and even more confounding process. 
This is a go nowhere, do nothing job. It is boring and easy and if it weren't for the terrible management, inane business processes and constantly shifting expectations it wouldn't be a bad place to work. If you need something for the short term, if you have a thick skin, if you can handle the swagger of a young manager getting his first taste of power, if you don't mind having your bathroom breaks timed, if you can face the reality that you are, in essence, perpetuating a broken and dishonest cycle of debt to help a company that does not care about you make more money off the poor and the misinformed, this is a great place to work.

For starters my title and pay don't reflect my responsibilities accurately. The marketing team treats the creative team like dirt. Also if their projects flop, they blame the creative team even though they don't let the creative team have any real say or input on projects. Personally I love my creative team but can't stand and don't trust the marketing team or any of my managers. 
Managers regularly single me out and throw me under the bus when projects flop. But said managers refuse to review work or provide feedback until we're in the final stages or production. So changes that could have been easily made to the script/storyboard aren't being make till we're far into video production. Which is a HUGE time waster and the main reason why I'm constantly struggling to finish projects on time. And its a vicious cycle of having my time wasted, then projects getting pushed, then managers putting me in the hot seat, my moral dropping, not having the time/energy/motivation to re-work projects, and still managing to get everything done just for the cycle to repeat. Oh and not to mention the amount of times that managers have failed to share vidal information till the last second causing huge last minute project re-works. And again they'll blame me by saying "I asked if you had everything you needed", but how was I suppose to know that you left info out of the project brief. Also for the first 5 months of working here I didn't even know that managers were suppose to be giving me project briefs. Cause no one properly on-boarded me.
During the on boarding processes I was told about how great culture is and how awesome the benefits are and how Nelnet really wants all of us to grow. None of that seems true from my experience. Like I said the creative team is treated like dirt and I think that is where the marketing team and our managers want us to stay. I don't see myself growing as a designer at this company, and the benefits are mid at best.
Also NO ONE on boarded me for my job, nobody told me how to use the project mamagerment software, or where to find files. I didn't know what the project process was or how the team operated. I should have left duing the first few week cause my manager didn't help me at all! Pretty big red flag. And down the road, I watched the same manager do it all over again to another new college. In fact that manager told the new hire that I could help them since I just joined, but I was never given a true onboarding there for I couldn't help onboard the new hire. (Super nice person but horrible managers, very absent and unhelpful)
My time at nelnet has been horrible, I was very hopeful coming into this job and in as little as 3 months all my hope had been lost. A
Plus the our marketing director clearly HATES the creative team. On multiple occations they have immplied that AI could do a better job then us. Also they told us that moral was low because people were discussing wages and that it's not good to compare yourself to someone else... moral is low because no one feels like they're being payed fairly and everyone is over worked, but okay.
OH and the "culture" is corporate money hungry garbage people who act like they're royalty and if you even look at them wrong they'll go to your manager who will go to your direct superior who will ask you to apologize even though you already did in person but now i guess you have to also do it via email. 
Lol don't work here, expeically if you're looking for a creative job. It's trash. If you think working at Initech from the movie Office Space looks like fun, then work somewhere else because nelnet is worst.

Nelnet, Inc. is a company that is fast paced, with a high potential for high levels of stress and employee burn out. 

You're supposed to be ready to answer calls at the time your shift is scheduled to begin, which means you're supposed to be there 5-10 minutes before your shift actually starts in order to get your computer up and running. They have relatively strict guidelines in terms call time, after call work, and micromanage everything you do (including using your break time to use the restroom, even if it's emergent). A typical day will result with you taking between 30-60 calls from student loan borrowers that fall into one of three categories: easy to handle, super angry/upset about something that happened. The calls generally are easy enough to handle, if you have a decent amount of patience and know how to manage your temper.

Members of leadership also fall into two categories: willing to go above and beyond to help you in several areas, or "I'm just here to get a paycheck" and micromanage you to death. My Team Lead and Supervisor have both been amazing and I have seldom felt like I wasn't a valued member of the company.

The company divides the employees into teams, which is nice. Each team will have random food days and it does a fair amount to lift moral, but only if you have the money to participate in the food day (if you didn't bring anything, you don't get to take part in it. If you're broke, sorry.) Your team is supposed to be a support system, as well as your "work family" but for the most part everyone just kinda keeps to themselves. You can tell the ones that are getting burned out because of the constant need for mandatory OT.

The hardest part of the job is meeting the metrics. I am a sales person. That's what I have done most of my life. I talk. I'm a talker. This job is not for you if you like to talk. You are expected to keep your calls at less than 8 minutes, your after call work (wrap up or summary of the call, as each account is notated with what you and the borrower discussed) to less than a minute, and hold times to less than 30 seconds. Hold times are easy enough. After call work is a little more challenging if you're like me, and can't type and talk at the same time. Talk times are the most challenging one to meet because of the reasons I have mentioned above. I have had calls that went on for 30-90 minutes because I was either arguing with a borrower, or had to explain what was going on or the options the borrower had a multitude of times.

The most enjoyable part of the job, aside from the food days, is talking to people from all walks of life, the rich and well off to the broke and unemployed. Everyone is different and for the most part, it's enjoyable. The fact that Nelnet, Inc. takes part in several different charities is also very nice. They help with Habitat for Humanity, Junior Achievers, and United Way. They do give back to the community, and that's refreshing to see.

Typical day of work was get logged in 15 minutes before clocking in and being ready to jump on phones. 15 minutes on some days are dedicated to training/quality assurance modules and review.

I learned a lot about my limitations as a CSR and how important work-life balance is, which is not high on their list of priorities but is included in the misc. modules that you can do when you have free time.

Higher management beyond team leads was questionable at best, with the decisions being made and expectancy for fast-adapting to frequent changes and little support coming down the lines. I had two team leads while I was there and they made an obvious effort to unit the team and make working there less awful, and they were present in monthly meetings to review call stats.

The culture was based on how much a team lead cared. I think I lucked out because they were fresh team leads trying to innovate and improve, not the older leads that I heard bad things about. Best I can advise is it depends on how willing you are to communicate on a personal level in your teams chats/meetings if you're allowed to do so by your lead.

Hardest part of the job is the job itself; the calls. People are angry when it comes to paying off student loans and when you get put on outbound, you better prepare yourself for some de-escalations or disconnections.

There isn't an enjoyable part of the job when it's CS. But you'll make money.

Side Note:
This may have only happened because of the PSLF program offered by Biden, but there was a point where a bunch of us were just "lent" to another company contracted to the DOE, where we worked a completely different job (with its own training that took about 3 days) with plans to simply go back to our previous roles once that company's temporary needs were met.

Instead of going back, we were gathered together and told we were all being laid off because the DOE decided to make changes to where in the world people could work remotely. I lucked out and got offered to stay on because of another last-minute change, but hundreds of others were without a job (with nearly 30-days notice).

A solid example of just how much impact upper management had without consideration for everyone doing the work. And if you think lower management was without its own problems, they were the ones who had to deliver the news and receive the brunt of everyone's anger and emotions in a meeting that hosted more than dozens of people.

Unfortunately the company does not hire people based on experience or education. They will hire anyone off the street regardless of education or work experience. It is very difficult to work with and for people with little to no work experience or education. We are hired to work on a Government contract and have to apply to have Federal Government Security Clearence. However, the pay is absolutely terrible. For a Government contract I have been there for 2 and a half years and still do not make 15.00 per hour. I have a BA Degree and over 20 years of customer service experience with management experience as well. They promote from within but promote people who are clicky and who spend all of thier time sucking up to anyone in a higher role than them. It's so frustrating to have to help people with student loan debt and not be able to do much because the imcompetent people in other departments made mistakes. The average speed of answer and the time on the call is more important to Nelnet than the level of customer service that is provided. There was a chat feature available for customers but they took it away because they cant handle the calls coming in. They take people who were working on the chats and put them on the phones to help the call ques. This makes customers angry and confused. Nelnet does not care because they only care about numbers. They purchased many commercial loans from other companies over the last year but did not hire enough people to handle the accounts forcing employees to work mandatory overtime and making other departments do the jobs of others creating more errors and poor customer satisfaction. Direct managers have little to no power over tasks and employee schedules anymore. They put an outside company in charge of company productivity and it has reaked havoc on the company. Everyone is confused, tired, and frustrated. Some people come to work not knowing if they will be able to do thier job or someone elses job every day. How can I reccomend this to anyone? I can't. It's not worth it. I know people who have been there for more than 5 years who say they have been holding out for change but are now looking for a new place to work out of a feeling of defeat and broken promises.

This company is extremely greedy. It is one of the two companies in the state of Colorado that fire employees most often. (The company home office is in another state, but many employees are in Colorado.) The year I worked there, the company had purchased six competitors in an effort to monopolize the student financial aid servicing sector. 

They make employees keep extremely detailed data of every task - even reading and responding to emails, and report the data at the end of each workday. To get a satisfactory rating an employee must perform with 80%-90% speed AND accuracy of the best company employee in the job category. Every task is mechanized to the degree that there is no room for initiative, innovation or creativity. Even the computer system was rigid. It was not possible to adjust font size, for example.

The job I had entailed decoding computer data that had been obsolete for years. The data came from companies that no longer existed and from computer programs that were entirely obsolete. The data appeared on the printed page as typed characters of all sorts with no paragraphing, punctuation or sentences - just a mass of symbols. There was no reference material for decoding. The administrative assistant was required to infer the coding system by intuition alone.  As the Claims Processor (i.e. administrative assistant) decoded, she was supposed to translate the data and enter it into the company's proprietary computer program. 

The company's disability benefits program is entirely self-funded. The Hartford Insurance company manages it, but does not underwrite any part of the program. Therefore the Hartford Insurance company always rules in favor of the employer if there is any way to do so. 

Every company priority was measured against monetary gain.

The work itself wasn't anything glamorous but we were driven to do better because we would have games and prizes going on daily and weekly. On any given day we would have 2 breaks and a lunch. We were all scheduled for 9 hour shifts with an automatic hour lunch. If you were a senior agent you would be able to take a half hour lunch and leave a little early or work over lunch if it was busy for a possible early out as well as possible over time depending on call volume. Most of the time there was only a couple seconds between calls on any given day. Being around the community was excellent. I loved a lot of the people I worked with. It frustrated me that people weren't being called out for not caring on calls and giving bad customer service because the other agents would have to deal with that customer later on and it is literally your job to be a good customer service rep. If you can't then you should find a different job that isn't based in customer service. I learned system protocols as well as data entry for new customers as well as data retrieval for previous customers. I really enjoyed most management. There was only one person in management that I really didn't get along with and that is because she really didn't care about anyone but herself when it came to work, personal, or other that was brought up. The hardest part of the job was staying positive because the people who were calling didn't ever want to be on the phone with you because they were trying to reach the company or it was a wrong number. Very rarely did people want to talk specifically with home advisor. The best part of my job was hands down the community. I loved the easy going and playful atmosphere that we had not only with our co-workers but also the leads minus that one supervisor that I had issues with they were all reasonable, accommodating, and connected with you on a personal level as well as a professional level. You were a family there.

Typical day includes meetings in the AM and heads down working in the afternoons. This varies though.  There are so many disconnects and misalignments between higher-level management and the people that actually do the work. Mid-management doesn't seem to have the slightest idea what's going on for the most part.  Management recently caught wind of the massive disconnects and miscommunications about some significant projects. Not. Good.

There are no rewards, promotions, or recognition to be had even for high performers -- those that attempt to go above and beyond are told to "Stay in your lane".   The people, generally speaking, are good to work with (Except a few bad apples), but collectively there is a lot of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and some dysfunction that needs to be addressed. The PO is actually terrible and routinely "goes off" on people, and nothing is done about it.

The hardest part of the job is dealing with incompetence of other junior members of the team, and it's frustrating to see people simply ignore stakeholder requirements and do whatever they want.   BUT on the flipside, it is incredible the amount of flexibility that we have in terms of managing our own time and daily routines.  Another positive is that the stakeholders are actually very intelligent for the most part and try to distill their goals and objectives so that they can be translated into requirements and tasks.

The company wants employees to drink the coolaid about agile, but it doesn't really work well and it is crammed down everyone's throats even though it doesn't fit nicely for data solutions.

Contribute what you can; but no motivators to do anything more.   I tried developing a solid portfolio of the incredible value I've added for the business, but ignored when I asked for a promotion.  You are essentially stuck in your position once you're in here.



For starters there’s a lot to the background and getting classified as if you’re going to be a government employee only to be considered a contractor working on behalf of the government. Being an employee of this company has not been easy. The duties of the job and the pay does not align. It’s stressful. I’ve been assigned to multiple jobs without a choice. Not often but they’ll move you where they need flash train you then back to your original position. After the first 90 days there’s constant change with very little training. You’re expected to be on a call every minute of your shift. There’s no grace for logging into your system at the beginning of your shift. You’re expected to login early, start your systems then wait to clock in. There’s no lapse time between calls. The expectations that are set during the interview as far as cash bonuses and incentives are not accurate. There’s a quarterly bonus (if you get it),health care incentives & a discount shopping program that in my opinion is useless. The healthcare is expensive if you jump thru hoops to receive the discounts.  There’s no bonus nor incentives based on collections even though you will process payments on inbound calls and make out bound calls to collect on past due accounts. They recently gave out raises then a week later did another huge layoff based on the state you live in. Then all of a sudden there was mandatory overtime added to everyone’s schedule. The call flow is overwhelming and the mandatory overtime is still going. If your manager is nice you might receive incentives from them from time to time but don’t expect much from the company. They should show more appreciation to their employees.

This is a collections position. You are on the phone the entire day with borrowers, attempting to get them to pay their student loans. The borrowers are typically pretty aggravated, but you get used to that.
Before, they had a fair commission plan: if you hit your numbers, you got a percentage of all of the collections you received up to a hard limit.
However, they changed it after they got beat by another company in default rates. In order to "incentivise" better numbers, they made it so that if you hit your number **AND** the company comes in first in default rates at the end of the quarter, you got the commission (same amount as it was before). If you hit your numbers and the company still gets second place or lower, you would have been just as well slacking off for 3 months and you will receive no commission. The collectors on the floor are, in general, enjoyable people. The management, however, lives in another world and thinks you should be thankful for everything they do for you.
Lastly, job advancement is mediocre, at best. You have a very good shot at getting a position in a different department as you please (after a 6 month probationary period). However, for the most part, you will move sideways as far as pay goes; you receive more (and occasionally even less) per hour, but lose commission. If you have graduated from college and are looking for a solid place to get your foot in the door, this is not a good place to do it.
This position usually comes with one mandatory half-Saturday a month. To compensate (ultimately to prevent them from paying overtime), you work one hour less each day the following week.

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