Indeed, you are correct

Well I went in for an interview for the MT position despite the posts on this website. Thanks to this website and postings, I somewhat knew what I was getting into but wanted to get some interviewing practice,plus I was hoping the "car washing" aspects wouldnt be true. Unfortunately it is. This is the job description I was given regarding the Management Training Program.... 50-60 hrs a week including weekends and holidays, outside,cold call sales, lots of car washing ("You will get your tie caught and dirty") and all this for about 29,800 a year! I know you all may think I'm crazy but I actually turned down this lucrative offer. As much fun as washing cars, cold call sales and long hours sound, I felt my best play would be to look elsewhere. One question though.... Why in the world would a degree be necessary for this job? Obviously it's an insult to those that busted their butts earning an education and degree.

Brian,

I used to work at Hertz and started in the Management training program in Texas. Eerything you said is true. It is not an easy job and it is not supposed to be. It is designed to seperate the talented managers from the wanna be's. I advanced up the ranks from manager trainee to assistant manager to branch manager to district manager to city manager in under 3 years. Obviously, not everyone can do this as there was only 3 city manager positions in all of Dallas. But in the end, the system worked. I worked with a lot of college grads who had no career direction and they either advanced at Hertz and recieved valuable paid experience or they realized management wasn't for them and got into something that made more sense to them or went back to school for more specific training.

In the end I was laid off by Hertz when I had gone as high as i could go but i have been able to land high leel jobs with other companies as a result of all the training i recieved at Hertz.

I worked for Hertz in HR and everything here is true. The MT program in theory is great, you really should get a full service of experience in everything, the problem lies with the poor management that really doesn't work to develop their employees to move them to the next level. In theory, you should be an MT for 6 - 9 months and what really happens is that people get left in that role for 1 plus. The degree is 'required' because it is a management geared position and again, in theory you should have your own branch in about 2 years which really is not that long since as you move out of the MT program the bonus potential does get more lucrative. If you are a selling maching, you will succeed but you must also have the mentality to watch out for your own. The team mentality is few and far between for a lot of the cities. Would I say this is the employer of choice? Nope. The intentions may be there but numbers is the ONLY language spoken here. Would I recommend Hertz to a friend? No way. I use to love my job, until the true colors (or numbers) started coming out.

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JP82, thank you SO much for your comments. everyone else had great things to put in, but as JP82 is from Long Island, you would know what to expect in the LI environment more than anyone else (I have an interview in Nassau County tomorrow).