Pros
Working as a retail sales representative, you gain firsthand experience on how the CPG industry works. You are assigned a territory with different accounts such as Walmart, Kroger, and Safeway and a number of stores. It can be 8 stores to 70 stores depending on the territory. You quickly learn how to communicate with different personalities as you are dealing with store managers and different personnel in the store to help you accomplish your priorities. Your job is to gain anything incremental outside of the aisle. A lot of the times, display features are planned in the store but some stores do not follow the planner. Features are also sent in without planned spots so it is your job to find a way to execute it. This job is a humbling experience. You really get to learn how to see things from others perspectives. A lot of the times, you are disrespected as store personnel see you as just a merchandiser rather than an educated and informed retail partner but you quickly learn to grow a thick skin. After college, this seemed like a great company to start your career with. You are assigned a company car that you can use as a personal car and given other perks. Your base salary is 42K and they tell you that you can work up to 55 hours but it is optional. Since you are paid hourly, you can make a lot depending on how much you work. They also strongly highlight the fact that you can be promoted in 12-18 months. If you are a high achiever, you think to yourself that this is definitely within your reach.
Cons
The Hershey Company is in a declining category and sales have been plateauing in the past few years. As consumer trends have shifted towards better for you products, Hershey has acquired companies such as Krave Jerky and Barkthins to help capture some of the dollar opportunities in the snacking and better for you category. This has resulted in an insurmountable number of priorities placed on the retail team. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Not only do you have to attend to the demands of their everyday business but you also have to balance their seasonal business like Halloween where you are building pallet after pallet. When corporate is unable to sell in a program, you are instructed to sell to managers at store level. You are required to work a minimum of 47 hours even though when you are hired, you are told that 40 is the minimum is and anything above is optional. You are sent passive aggressive emails every month if you do not hit a certain number of hours in store or your priority call coverage. You are not provided the tools to be able to achieve above a 90% on both metrics. Some territories have such a large number of stores that they are set up for failure in the beginning. You are also not informed that you receive tons of display boxes that are automatically sent to your home at the time of hire. If you live in a 1 bedroom apartment, it will quickly fill up your entire living room. They do not pay for storage. The company talks about reducing waste but does not realize how much money they spend on unnecessary display kits. Most of the time, you are not informed about what's being sent to you and what it is used for. The manager that I had was inexperienced, unsupportive, and self-centered. She did not care about us as individuals and we were treated like numbers. She hardly provided recognition and was quick to point out any criticisms rather than provide constructive feedback. During her tenure, more than half the team quit and left the company because of her. There is also a lack of access to networking opportunities with higher managers. My manager discouraged us from reaching out to them. Promotions are politically based even when you are one of the top performers. When everyone is told they will be promoted upon hiring, it creates a crab in a bucket mentality. They use promotion as a tactic to extract more value out of you rather than actually care about your career path. The next step is usually a district sales supervisor role where you are managing reps that call on convenience stores. Other roles such as customer sales executive and category analyst are less abundant so you may be stuck in the retail sales representative role for a long time before a role besides district sales supervisor opens up. Hershey is a company with a great legacy but for anyone that is applying, I would say just be aware of what you are signing up for.