Employee Review of Cerner Corp. - Check out more reviews of working at Cerner Corp.

You can read all of the comments already out there, but I will verify a few and make a few of my own as it pertains to my experience.

Cerner hires 80% internal and 20% external. What that basically means is they hire a lot of College kids and put them in to the Velocity program. Velocity is a 2 years'ish program that moves them around quickly so they can get up to speed and then places them in the field for up to 2 years. Basically warm bodies for professional services dollars. Long hours and lots of travel. Typically out on Monday and back on Thursday every week. The glamor of travel wears off quick I'd imagine which explains the burnout rate. If you can make it past that then you will likely move thru the ranks internally and you may find it a rewarding place. I believe it is partly to weed the herd and partly to have those "warm bodies" to sell.

That being said, my experience is slightly different as I didn't come out of college to them. I was already well into my career and hired for a specific skill set. So the long hours and hard work were more of a "you get out of it what you put in to it" scenario. As others have mentioned if your lazy and un-motivated, you probably wont make it at Cerner. They also tend to thin the herd by letting the bottom 5-10% go each year. It is usually a quiet thing, but a few years back they actually called it a layoff and the stock price took a dive. So needless to say, that was the only year they actually called it a layoff.

So now to my experience and discontent with them. I was in a sales capacity with them. And my only real discontent besides the normal hoopla (management inexperience (this is a real issue for them), very very political atmosphere - what can you do for me, Good Ole Boys club, etc... and benefits that look good on the surface until you really pick them apart) is that they have no respect for sales talent or what seems like any desire to retain said talent. Biggest complaint amongst sales related roles is very slow commission payouts and what might be said to be a desire to do everything in their power to "not pay" their sales people. Back in February, commissions were actually delayed payout due to Neal Patterson going through every sales persons payouts line by line. That is unheard of and got a good laugh from my colleagues at other organizations.

Needless to say, I decided to move on after 5 years with them and have not looked back. I enjoyed my time with them and I respected my colleagues immensely. At the end of the day though, I needed to move to do what was best for me and my family.

The best advice I can give to all who may read this is if you are considering going to work for Cerner, be ready for a couple years of hell and be very social and make a lot of friends quickly and you will do well. If you are at Cerner and burned out, the grass is greener and get your resume out there. You won't regret it.