Pros
This company has many resources for employees to plug into to meet others with the same interests as them, The pay was decent for the type of industry we are in and the clients were always a pleasure to interact with. I believe that if you are of a very specific background, know how to manage your relationships with your team, and impress the client, you will succeed here. If you are good at analytics and have a deep understanding of how to apply that to marketing AND you are high up enough to make strategic decisions, you would thrive here. If you are in a more junior role, goodluck climbing up. Phil Nardone is genuinely a good guy and always open to hearing from you. And I think overall people here have the best intentions. I genuinely gave it my all and leadership really tried to move the team forward, but the friction between what I was able to do and the expectations just never aligned.
Cons
First, the work environment. It felt like I was constantly being gaslit. Team leads were unfriendly and unhelpful. They’d tell you to ask questions, and then get annoyed when you actually asked clarifying questions. So fine, you stop asking. Then you do something “wrong” and suddenly there’s a flood of feedback. It was a nonstop stream of nitpicking. Not everything is a fire drill, and yet everything was treated like one. This is marketing and PR, not nuclear codes. The culture also felt creatively stifling. Ideas would get shut down quickly, and it didn’t feel like a place that actually valued new thinking. Like I said, Phil exudes kindness but I wish that PAN could have been extended that same kindness to me when I was working there. Second, the workflows were ridiculous. Why is everything done over email? This was an inefficient way of managing deliverables. Do we not have basic project management tools like every other company? That can then show the status of each task and notes can be left to the next person during handoff. Tasks were constantly sent back and forth via email, cluttering inboxes and making it unnecessarily hard to track final versions. Of course I "did not get your last email". It was buried within old versions of the last item asked of me. It’s inefficient and absolutely nonsensical. Third, the team structure. Maybe this style just isn’t for me, but it was clear team leads wanted things done in one very specific way. Even if your work was correct, if it wasn’t done exactly how they would do it, you’d get feedback. The structure puts a heavy load of execution on junior staff with very little autonomy or ownership. You’re responsible for getting small tasks done, but not trusted to strategize with team lead. So then you're doing grunt work with zero ability to give input and anything straying from it would get you in trouble. Honestly, if I were a client, I would not trust this company to do my PR and run my digital marketing. The lack of creativity and lack of openness to new ideas is reflected in every single aspect of the company. The rigid and weirdly catty hierarchy, the inability to take new ideas, and obviously slow to change processes.