The research department at CoStar is bogged down by terrible and toxic upper management. The quality of the data obtained by researchers is compromised due to the expected standard of metrics, which are constantly imposed by intimidation and threats. I constantly went into work on any given day expecting to be fired for not performing to their extremely high metrics. Lower level management is pressured from levels above them, which in turn places pressure on actual researchers themselves. I could tell that managers at a direct level above researchers were under immense pressure from highers up to have their teams perform well, to the extent where they confidentially acknowledged shortcomings with policies and procedures that were counter-intuitive to day to day operations with their teams. I could not name more than five people in such a large office that actually enjoyed coming to work for such a toxic and awful company. If you can tolerate a god awful work environment with the guise of cash incentives and a month long Tesla rental in front of you, then by all means go for it.
CoStar is an extremely large and successful company that occupies such a major portion of the industry it operates in, which gives it a major advantage in initial appeal for potential new hires in the job market. What you don't initially see are the levels of turnover and the morale of the people that come into work consistently miserable due to being berated for not obtaining pointless metrics that reflect nothing about their work ethic or the quality of data submitted in the long run. The saddest part is, the people who make major decisions at CoStar could probably care less, especially for lower level employee retention for the Richmond research headquarters. They can pull from a new batch of recent college grads every three months from the several colleges in the area, and keep bodies in the building until they get fed up and quit after they can't take it anymore. Personally, I have never had a job take such an adverse toll on my mental health until I joined CoStar. I feel like a whole new person after getting the hell out of there.
In context to other reviews on here, I agree with the fact that there may be fake reviews listed to boost and inflate the overall rating of the company based on feedback. Many of the direct company responses acknowledge the metric driven atmosphere, but please know how that is constantly shoved in your face and essentially determines your value to the company. The entire research department is composed of people that don't care, either because the job is pointless and requires you to harass brokers/random businesses to "solicit information" (obtain a 90 second phone call to obtain credit for looking like you're attempting to do your job), or people that just show up, do the job, and leave without any sense of fulfillment or enjoyment about what they actually do. Truly think long and hard about what you want to sacrifice for the enticing compensation and benefits package. I took a significant pay cut after breaking ties with the company and I feel so much better about doing so when looking at the bigger picture.
If you don't want to hate your job and yourself, don't give CoStar any of your time or consideration.
