Pros
There were some lovely colleagues and wonderful people I worked with. I arrived at the school with good intentions and a commitment to doing great work. I want to share my honest experience so others may learn from it.
Cons
If you would like your career to come grinding to a halt, Juilliard is the place to do it. Never have I worked anyplace so disappointing. Go above and beyond. Meet every expectation. Deliver again and again and get...absolutely nowhere. Broadly speaking, the school has little interest in advancing careers and rewarding a job well done. There are no performance reviews (on purpose) and the 2 or 3% cost of living "raises" are insulting. Senior leadership loves to pile on projects and watch naive employees step up for work well beyond their job description only to make sure they are never compensated for results. The school's longstanding compensation strategy is tied to its financial models that boil down to a reliance on a revolving door of intentionally underpaid staff attracted to its prestigious brand. There is no incentive to retain employees when a steady stream of applicants is waiting in line for open roles. All efforts to achieve parity and basic fairness by demonstrating reasonable salary comparisons or advancing in any way are met with 'there's nothing we can do'. It needlessly stresses relationships between employees and managers and wastes ridiculous time in terms of onboarding and training. This comes from an institution with a BILLION dollars in the bank and a narcissist president solely interested in using the school's staff and resources to promote himself. Nothing new there. It's a shame so many people slog through a few years to reach the same conclusions. Leadership is aware and intentional about what they are doing. They have calculated that fair pay is not in the school’s financial interest.