Pros
- Fully remote in an era of RTO, if that's what you want
- Achievable bonus targets that are paid out quarterly
- Solid overall benefits package
- Nice equipment package from IT, including two large monitors for working on (I'm spoiled by that now!)
- Lots of autonomy
Cons
- I went into this role, my first fully remote one, expecting it to feel sort of like early COVID - lots of face to face through video meetings, lots of communication to help everybody feel connected since we're not around each other. But, in six months, there were zero company meetings. There was never anything communicated about how the company was doing. There was vague mention of board meeting prep from my boss, but no sharing of how the meetings ever went. Any results information I ever heard was just through co-workers.
- In six months, I never saw the company CEO, President or CFO on a call or felt their presence in any way. The only emails I ever got from them were sharing GoFundMe links for employees out in the field somewhere that were having a hard time. But, when I visited the links and looked at the top donors list, the company leadership was never on there. That says a lot right there.
- This is a private equity-owned company and they want a massive return + payday. These guys aren't in this for the long-term.
- There is no CMO or real leader of marketing. The team falls under the Chief Strategy Officer but he is far busier crafting LinkedIn posts to show how smart he is and get himself future consulting/speaking gigs than working with the team to solve anything.
- For those on the marketing team, it's a formulaic, generic, repetitive type of marketing. That's probably the only way to possibly do work across 60+ brands but that doesn't mean it's interesting or engaging for those on the team. The fact that, for 63 brands, there are only 2.5 creative team members (and no copywriting) is a pretty clear sign what is valued...and it's not creativity. ChatGPT is used far more than I was used to in previous roles, especially when compared to agency side.
- Supervisors are frequently overloaded with too many direct reports. I typically got 30 mins with mine every two weeks, which was often 20-25 because she was typically late to the meeting.
- I received no 60 or 90 day review, nor any performance feedback of any kind.
- Even within the marketing team, there weren't even regular team meetings; I think there were 2 in six months? Beyond everybody trying to make sure the brands sell more new HVAC installs, there was no communication about what the vision is, what the plan is, what everybody's working on, etc. It's all very siloed, uncollaborative and uninspiring.
- 15 PTO days is pretty weak in this day & age, as is having to use them for Black Friday and Christmas Eve. The company is challenged as they don't want to give benefits to the corporate team that the more blue collar field teams don't get either, which is understandable, but again, it's a really weak point of the package compared to most any ad agency or other corporate gig.
