Seer Interactive Reviews

3.3

48% would recommend to a friend

(116 total reviews)

Wil Reynolds

69% approve of CEO

59% positive business outlook

Seer Interactive has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 116 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Seer Interactive employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

116 reviews
1.0
16 Feb 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Adding Seer to my resume opened a lot of doors when it was time to leave -They do really care about the surrounding community and Wil would fire you if he could if you didn't do at least some community service volunteering. He will also tell you that again and again and again, so, this is actually kind of a con too. Pro tip: you don't need to listen and it is illegal for him to fire you for not volunteering. That said, he will not like you if you don't join him in whatever quest he's interested in.

Cons

-Pay: you're underpaid compared to most other agencies. A 60k minimum salary is great, but you can get 70k minimum at Directive. The benefits, most of which were in office based, are nothing to really brag about. This is a tech field, you will get great benefits almost any agency you go to. -Hours: You ready to track every waking minute of your professional life? If you're not, you will assuredly have problems with management seeing you as 'under performing', no matter the quality of your output. Get ready to put in more time in creating an out of office plan than the time you will actually enjoy while on vacation. Seer fully expects you to be available for clients and coworkers at all times. I can't stress enough how relieving it was to be able to delete the chat programs off my phone and be able to actually enjoy an evening after 8 pm. -Culture + People: Cultish, cliquey, and largely unaware that there are in fact other SEM agencies that exist (and that surprise: some do things a LOT better). Seer makes you feel as though they're the only good company in the world, which is so horribly false. I mean, the company barely even provides training, and where it does it is far from comprehensive. The staff is also primarily fresh from college with limited experience in the field, which is really why I wanted to highlight the lack of training. You've got kids with no idea what to do learning it all on the job with little to no support from the company itself. The weekly FYF threads are nauseating - low effort praise and cheerleading all aimed at creating a false appearance of being happy. Though I worked there pre-pandemic, it was not at all uncommon to see folks in the office past 8 pm on a Friday night trying to finish up their work for the week -- and this was an expectation of Seer. Oh, and finally, if you DO have a problem with another coworker then too bad. If they're well liked, have been there for over a year, or some how got into Wil's circle, you're boned. No one will ever take your side. -Professional Growth: Again, there is no real training at Seer or room for side of desk projects/training. If you want to develop in a specific area, do it on your own time. They won't really help you at all. This also makes it difficult when looking for promotions or pay raises. Most leadership positions at Seer are also held by individuals who have been there for 6+ years. This creates an insular and occasional stubborn culture that is unwilling to accept any sort of change. It's a giant echo chamber. -The Work: If you have any interest in SEO beyond content marketing then Seer is not for you. The core of the business is content strategy and development and calling it SEO. Maybe 7 employees can write schema. Maybe 25 can use Screaming Frog efficiently, despite having one of the best guides on how to use the tool. There are also no standardized approaches, reports, deliverables, etc. You're constantly making it all up as you go. This then means that clients get a mixed bag in terms of performance. In essence, no two clients are getting the same (or even similar) output. -Management in general: There are a few truly empathetic managers at Seer. Then there are a lot more that have been there for 6+ years, without any other job experience, that have moved into the roles of managers, and are unwilling to take outside suggestions. These folks are part of the 'in group', or Wil's favorites, and if you've got one as your manager I'm so sorry. -Wil: Wil has done an absolutely incredible job at a few things. 1) Surrounding himself with sycophants - I never saw anyone tell him 'No' while there, or even pushback when a bad idea was presented. In fact, if you tried to message him and used an email that wasn't either bulleted, 150 characters long, or did not contain a TLDR you were going to run into issues with the dude. Apparently, he thinks he does not have enough time to sit and read something if it's not formatted correctly. Insane. 2) Projecting an image of selflessness, when the dude is actually pretty petty and brutal to work with. While there, he made a pretty big deal about not buying a Lambo and instead providing pretty meager bonuses to his staff based 3) Creating a hostile work environment by having very clear favorites and pitting staff members against each other in the name of 'progress'. 4) Building a public image of Seer. I mean really, before working there, I was convinced they were doing exceptional things. They aren't. It's all on stage. 5) Seeming Innovative: This is kinda the same as above, but Seer came up with a few good ideas a few years ago. PowerBI to analyze PPC and SEO data is awesome. Looking for wasted spend is awesome. This is the extent of the innovation at Seer. But they'll tell you about their homebuilt keyword rank tracker and tell you that it's exceptional and unrivaled. They'll tell you about their BI + Data team and say they're incredible, and those individuals are, but the output is nothing unique. Beyond that, new ideas or novel approaches to problems are not exactly welcome. Essentially, if Wil doesn't think of it or if one of his favorites doesn't say it, whatever project or idea you have will fall flat on its face. I don't want to just bash Wil though. His big picture thinking is what excited me about working at Seer. He has excellent business acumen and can be a pretty likable guy. It's just that the face he shows the world on stage is very very different than the one you see in the office, and the company itself is stagnant and overly focused on the image they project vs the way they actually treat and take care of their employees. A final note: over the last 2 years the company has experienced insane turn over. Individuals who had been there for 8+ years are leaving in droves. Why do you think that is? If the company REALLY treated people that well, you'd think they would stay for life.

2.0
7 Apr 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The Founder is still seen as some SEO "God" in the industry (not sure why, honestly) so you have the opportunity to work with some large clients. But heads up... they catch wind of the agency's inabilities pretty quickly so there is potential for you to hurt your personal brand by coupling yourself with this agency. - Typical of any agency, there are *some* really smart, hardworking, and awesome employees. But for every 1 genuinely capable employee, there are like 3 incapable employees so good luck! And the good employees typically question status quo / bring in new ways of thinking, which is often overshadowed by the herd-like mentality that is applauded by managers.

Cons

I'll start from the top and make my way down: - The Founder is an egotistical maniac who genuinely thinks he is a good guy. I used to follow him on LinkedIn but got tired of him spouting disingenuous garbage about how he and his company are holier than thou. Don't let this fool you. Wil favors employees that applaud him (even when they know he is wrong), he devalues opposing opinions (even when data-backed), he creates a hostile work environment by reacting to every emotion he has in any given moment, and he is insanely unprofessional in communication. - The Directors, Associate Directors and Team Leads are made up of the 3% of complacent employees that seem to be okay with the hostile environment (Stockholm's Syndrome, possibly?). There isn't one Director, AD, or TL that wasn't born and bred within the walls of Seer. That's problematic in so many ways. It creates a cult-like environment where the only new ideas come from Wil and the fan girls below him push his agenda forward. - The AMs and Associates are a mixed bag at best. People are promoted waaaaay too fast and given accounts / responsibilities that they can't handle. Rather than training, mentoring, or setting people up for success as they fumble through new situations in their stretch roles, Seer lets people fail. AMs and Associates are overworked, exhausted, and working 55, 60, 65-hour weeks. Late-night emails, weekend work, holiday work, missed PTO, working on vacation is all very much a thing at Seer. The agency caters to a younger, more junior employee. Tenured professionals will not stick around for the lack of work-life balance, coupled with the offensively low pay. Last thing: I took a linear job change, decreased my workload, and increased my pay by 35%. If you are still working at Seer, trust me... you are getting WAY underpaid and WAY overworked

avatar
Seer Interactive Response
4y
Thank you for your review. It's super unfortunate to hear this was your experience on our team. We're sorry this wasn't better addressed/unpacked during your time on our team. We don't take this feedback lightly. There's a lot to digest here and a great deal for us to consider as we explore how to best prevent others from sharing this experience. Thank you for your candor and for giving us the opportunity to drive change across the areas noted.
1.0
27 Aug 2014

SEER isn’t for everyone? No - SEER isn’t for anyone.

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people you will work with on a day to day basis are helpful, intelligent and hard-working. You become extremely close to your co-workers because you all are terrified that the next random and emotional firing will be you. They have become so frequent that people no longer assume that the fired person was incompetent. They just assume that the firing was a result of a meltdown. This fact is solidified in the team meetings that follow the firings, because the CEO has to explain to the company that 1. the person saw it coming (not true) 2. they know what they did wrong (again, not true) 3. you have to "trust" upper management (how can we?) It's the same song and dance every single time. From what I've been told, SEER's great reputation was built on the foundation of a small search company that exceeded client's expectations. The reputation that is still pitched to prospective employees and clients is from a few years back, but "that SEER" is long gone.

Cons

One of SEER's favorite pitches to newbies is this - SEER isn't for everyone. Well, once you get in here, you'll quickly learn that SEER isn't for anyone. Someone in a previous review stated that us marketing folks care about numbers. Well, here are some numbers (that can be easily found on LinkedIn) SEER doesn't want prospective employees or clients to know: - 13 people out of 86 have been at SEER over 3 years (15%) - 8 people out of 86 have been at SEER over 2 years (9%) - 20 people out of 86 have been at SEER over 1 year (23%) - 45 people out of 86 have been at SEER less than one year (52%) - Of these 86 people, 36 people had no marketing experience before SEER (42%) - Most of the 50 people that did have "experience," have one search related role previous to SEER - Of these 86 people, less than 10 have a GAIQ or AdWords certification (~7%) - The company has tripled in size in the last two years, however, over 50 people have been (unjustly) fired or quit in this time - Of the people that have quit or been fired (without cause), almost everyone has gone on to better paying and respected job roles HR answered one of these negative reviews on this site that commented on the amount of inexperienced people by saying that they hire "entry level marketers with amazing ideas, extreme passion, and crazy ambition." HR should be spelled PR, eh? Basically, if you take a look at these reviews, you will see an overwhelming amount of positive reviews in late June. That is because SEER asked us to give recommendations and the only people who had the time to do so were people that have been here a few months, and don't really know what it's like yet. Also, side note, take a look at the grammar skills of these "entry level marketers with amazing ideas, extreme passion, and crazy ambition." It sounds like this - Isn't it like absolutely like amazing to work at SEER cause like you totally get to like go to Six Flags and like wear flip flops?! Anyway, the people that have started to give grammatically correct reviews (with valid talking points) obviously have been burned by SEER or are anticipating being burned by SEER and can't wait to leave. Take this into consideration when reading these reviews. And take all of this into consideration before you work here or work with SEER.

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Glassdoor has 126 Seer Interactive reviews submitted anonymously by Seer Interactive employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Seer Interactive is right for you.