The CEO has big dreams for BAM and she does work hard to try to create a good culture but she doesn't have the industry (PR and marketing) background to truly bring that vision to life or a supportive leadership team (which has changed over and over). For example, they make guarantees in their contracts without providing the appropriate caveats, which can disappoint clients and prove impossible to account teams actually executing the work. Goals where you aim high are always good but in the new biz phase you have not even half the picture, and you could be setting yourself up for failure.
Management sets a tone of distrust - you have strict hours for when you have to be in the office, people judge you if you take a long lunch break, everyone "leaves" at 5 but you are expected to be online later, and if you call in sick, they assume you are lying to them.
There isn't a work/life balance and they don't respect your time - I sometimes had to wait a long time (I'm talking days) for senior folks to review my materials and then it would be very late at night when I should be signed off for the day. I will add that the senior person where I experienced most of these issues is no longer with the company.
The perception of your work quality is very personality-driven, not based on your writing or results or client feedback. The senior management team decides on a whim whether or not they feel you are doing a good job - one day the way you did a call agenda is totally fine and then the next it's subpar. I noticed this happen with junior folks too - some people were considered to be put on probation but their work was better than others (largely based on how well they were getting along with people at the time).
Despite being a pretty small team there is no consistency - I saw huge span of work quality, most notably some people who had been there longer didn't have to follow the strict client management rules others did and their work was full of mistakes. Some people are micromanaged and others are left to do as they please.
They don't put a lot of strategic thinking into their media relations approach or planning - it's all very focused on tactics and procedures and selling BAM's value, instead of grounding their strategy in research and experience. For a firm that specializes mostly in media relations, they do an awful lot of other busy work instead of putting some real thought into their media strategy. Their approach is more or less to hound the reporter until you get the piece written, which is not my style and I don't think serves you well in the long run.
Generally, the staff are pretty nice people but it's clear they are overworked and no one seemed to be energized by what they were doing. Folks are very catty about sharing best practices and there is a precedent that you need to brag about your work consistently in all-staff meetings in order to establish your reputation and prove your value to the company.
I am very happy not to be associated with BAM any more. That said, it does seem some people have been able to find happiness there so my suggestion to interested candidates would be to ask around town and see what other's experience has been.
