Pros
The only pro is that the clients are good to have on your resume - and the company definitely knows that and uses it to hook you in.
Cons
- There is so much micromanaging that it is difficult to grow and learn how to do things on your own, and it wastes time. For example, upper management requests to approve every email that is sent to clients. - Supervisors definitely play favorites (based on appearance, “coolness,” and where you went to college/which sorority you were in) when it comes to hiring, promoting, and day-to-day. For example, when looking to hire for an entry level position, an Account Supervisor said we should hire someone who had just graduated from her college that month because “she must be good,” over someone who had been out of college for longer and actually had experience. - Similar to the above, a lot of emphasis is put on shallow, petty, non-work related topics, such as if you have a wealthy boyfriend/husband who works in finance, how much designer clothing you wear, where you are from/what your parents do for work, how many Instagram followers you have, how little you weigh, and where you travel/spend the summer weekends. There was so much talk about these topics that it distracted from actually getting work done (especially because of the open floor plan, which is a whole separate issue). - It is an unnecessary competitive environment. Each week there is an unofficial competition to see who can get the most placements for their clients and people get very cutthroat about being able to claim a placement as theirs, rather than helping each other out for the overall sake of the client and so we can all grow as publicists. - Supervisors allow clients to walk all over the lower-level employees and don’t put their foot down when clients make unrealistic demands. You are often expected to work very late hours and on weekends. - The open office floor plan makes it very difficult to concentrate and there is a complete lack of personal space. You are not allowed to have any personal items at your desk (no photos, all pens and notebooks must be standard issue white and from the same brand, etc.) Everybody works off laptops rather than desktops, which is uncomfortable/bad for the back and has a small screen so it’s difficult to work on large reports, etc. - This may have changed, but when I worked there, you weren’t given any PTO/Sick days until you had been with the company for one year. Combined with the long hours, this really led to burnout. - Entry level employees are thrown into things with little training, yet have high expectations immediately (expected to start securing high-level placements basically within their first week). - Because of all of this, there is SO much turnover. I would guess that the majority of new hires do not last over a year.