Hours: You must work retail hours. The schedule is highly variable; your hours scheduled as well as days worked are different every week. This makes it extremely difficult to have a regular, healthy social life or pursue personal hobbies.
Stress: Sales jobs are stressful. CarMax is by no means the most stressful gig out there, but it can still be frustrating. For example, customers can return the car they purchased within 5 days for any reason. If they do so, you lose your commission and it becomes harder to meet your monthly quota. I've seen coworkers lose sales because of factors beyond their control such as: mechanical problems with the vehicle, Service Department not resolving issues to the customer's satisfaction, and customer receiving a better deal elsewhere on a new car.
Work-life balance: If you attend an open house meeting for new hires, you'll likely be told by the management that Carmax promotes a "good work-life balance." In theory this is true. In reality it simply isn't, at least not for sales. It's true that you are only scheduled for a 40 hour work week. However, I constantly receive calls from both customers and sales managers on my days off, which means I never truly get a break from work. Suppose your shift ends at 6:00 and a customer comes in at 5:30 wanting to buy a car? Or suppose it's your day off and you receive a phone call from a customer telling you they saw a car on the site and want to come in that same day to buy it. What do you do? It's VERY common to see sales consultants working on their days off or staying beyond their scheduled hours for this reason. Additionally, the company constantly urges sales consultants to achieve "President's Club" level, which means selling at least 15 cars per month. While this is certainly doable, I do not know of anyone personally who is able to sell this volume of cars while sticking to a 40 hour work week. The reality is, if you work only your scheduled hours, your sales numbers are probably going to be sub-par. To be successful at CarMax, you must sacrifice your personal life.
Cultish atmosphere: There's a lot of corporate kool-aid being served up. Conformity is highly prized at CarMax. Questioning the decisions of superiors or saying anything that differs from the "company line" will only get you on management's bad side. Everything is process-driven, and there is no room for creative thought. Much information is kept secret from Sales Consultants. During training you are told to "Have confidence in the Carmax offer." Which really means, have blind faith in whatever we tell you.
