If you are reading this thinking about enrolling on the sales associate program, I would recommend you save your energy for something else. The program is basically classroom learning, presenting and "shadowing i.e. annoying" different people around the business for 18 months until you pass and get given a minuscule account to manage.
During my time here, I was told to wear heels (lol yes really), wear my hair up and one archaic director even corrected me on how I held a knife and fork. The directors are the rudest bunch of people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting - obsessed with their own egos and business politics.
At the end of the program, if they don't think "you're one of them", you are at the mercy of the job market or shoved in a mediocre role elsewhere in the business. The bad thing is as well, that your time at CC means nothing to the job market - you haven't closed any deals, you haven't built any relationships or applied any knowledge to architecting a solution so you are just as inexperienced in their eyes as you were when you left university.
My advice for anyone looking to get into IT sales is to target one of the mid-sized IT firms, work your bottom off and enter enterprise level when you've got some decent experience and the klout to demand a decent basic. Do not waste your time on these programs as you gain nothing practical from them at all - you just get brainwashed into thinking this sexist, medieval corporate culture is the norm whereas there are so many businesses flourishing and embracing people's individuality. Good luck!
