Pros
Many of these reviews talk about how this agency has a good work/life balance, which in my experience meant that there would be entire weeks of doing absolutely nothing followed by a three week, incredibly disorganized sprint with inefficient long hours. I don't think this organization has it together enough to burn anyone out at the rate of a top agency. There are a handful of smart, conceptual thinkers who are wonderful to work with, but the message gets lost in the mess, and leadership does a lot of talking and not enough walking. Some of the work seems fun, creative, and interesting, but the process by which it comes to life is the most convoluted, painful, and inefficient way of doing things.
Cons
I felt like I time traveled back 10 years to a time when the boys club mentality, deeply ingrained bias and toxic leadership reigned over the ad world. Alarming lack of diversity. Alarming lack of women in leadership positions especially on the creative side. White men everywhere. Alarming claims of sexism and toxic, misogynistic management from many women. Several have resigned and moved on. Outdated and stagnant approach to the creative process. Lack of trust from creative management towards senior creatives. Outdated taste level, outdated references being brought to the table, outdated practices (passing PDFs and keynotes around while everyone is WFH?) It was incredibly difficult to get anything of quality done within the confines of the slowest-moving, most cumbersome organization that was both understaffed and lacked transparency. The manager I reported to was unable to make any creative decisions, provide any creative leadership, or rally the team around any goals. This manager (male, as there are no women in E or C level creative leadership positions) expected his direct reports to churn out work like a sweatshop so he could pick and choose his favorite things to present to clients. Not only is this incredibly inefficient, but it puts creatives in a position where they are constantly guessing and doing busywork when they should be on a team with a unified goal, collaboration and mentorship. It is an insanely archaic process that does not serve anyone in the organization and mostly speaks to the outdated, unconfident POV of white male leadership who are being aged out of the industry and are bitter about it. Project management has no sway, no ability to wrangle these people, no ability to control timelines or manage workloads. Communication is extremely poor, which is 100% optional in 2021. Too many emails, emails that get lost, people get left off meeting invites, information comes in piecemeal across chat, text, phone calls, emails, video meetings, baked documents and live working ones, versions, PDFs and group forums.