VSC Reviews

4.1

74% would recommend to a friend

(64 total reviews)
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Vijay Chattha

94% approve of CEO

75% positive business outlook

VSC has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 64 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The VSC employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

64 reviews
1.0
7 Feb 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Honestly, VSC always had a pretty stellar cast of account coordinators, executives, and managers. Some of the best coworkers I ever had were at VSC. VSC also always attracted a lot of interesting clients to work with. If you are into the tech startup up world this is a great introduction to it, and a good starting point if you want to build a career in the tech industry. You also learn a lot very quickly at VSC. Because of how lean the teams run, you can be hired on as a coordinator and quickly find yourself doing a lot of client facing work, strategic plans, go-to-markets type stuff. Unfortunately though, a lot of the things that make VSC a worthwhile experience for newer members of the workforce are also why it becomes such a nightmare as you approach the very low ceiling of your career at VSC.

Cons

Vijay and Stacy. These two make up the leadership cabal at VSC and while I will say Vijay is a pure savant in client meetings, I have no idea how they manage to keep an agency going. For example, they have been pushing the team to give them 5 star reviews on Glassdoor to inflate their agency rating into the top percentile. When I left I was hounded to leave a 5 star review on the way out by a few people more recently I have heard that they have actually been holding bonuses from employees for not submitting reviews. Pretty sure if you are an awesome company, you don’t withhold well earned bonuses from employees until they give you a gold star. More importantly though Vijay and Stacy are just super disorganized people. They miss deadlines, reschedule meetings, and just generally always seem to be playing catch up. Most of this comes from Vijay’s desire to have every company decision run through him though. That is cool when you are a tiny agency but it has reached a point where it seems unsustainable and when I was leaving VSC it had really started to show.

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VSC Response
8y
Thank you for your review. We highly encourage honest feedback of all kinds and certainly don't expect that it all be glowing. In response to your review, we'd like to assure you that any 3rd party info you may have heard about us holding bonuses from employees for not submitting a positive review is not only patently false but highly unethical. It is not a practice we have ever engaged in or will ever condone. We encourage feedback, of all kinds. In addition to an open door policy, we have an anonymous management and company survey that goes out annually and we make strides to improve areas of concern and continue practices that are deemed valuable. When employees leave, we do ask them to provide us feedback during exit interviews and let the world know about our culture on sites like this. We do have a process of quality control where our management gives important work a final review. This is something our clients request and is the reason our results have consistently delivered outsized results. We appreciate the feedback about this and are always working to streamline the process.
2.0
14 May 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The employees are very welcoming - Work from home on Fridays is a nice plus - Breakfast on Mondays is nice as well as snacks fulltime - You learn a lot about the how PR works in SF - It’s good to see how Vijay comes up with ideas and handles clients

Cons

- Inconsistent communication between managers and other employees - The CEO, Vijay, likes to micromanage on every detail, hindering progress - They exploit websites like Glassdoor to give an illusion of the company vs the reality - Pay is horrible compared to the amount of work that’s given to you and the minimum 45-50 hour work week - Management in almost all levels often loads their own work to the lower emoloyees and go off to do their own thing like traveling and partying - Due to the politics in the company, advancement in the company can only go so far - Quality and style of work is inconsistent, resulting in much inefficiency in how the company runs and some managers scolding you for doing what another manager has told you - Despite advertising “unlimited time off and vacation”, you’re pressured to not take time off and scolded if you even bring it up - They threaten to withold your bonus if you don’t follow a two month transition period before you depart the company or give a positive review on Glassdoor - There is little room for innovation or internal efficiency, despite claiming so - Despite claiming to be transparent, there is very little transparency in the company - You are often put on different accounts and given a task due immediately despite not being briefed on it or are able to provide input in advance - Fake news, click bait and misinformation in pitching, awards submissions, social media and sites like Glassdoor are encouraged, as long as it’s for the client - Due to the above things there is high turnover in the company, one of the big reasons for their constant hiring spree

2.0
19 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent incentives, work from anywhere, friendly coworkers, tons of transferable skills that will help you in your next step in your career, hands-on CEO, above average compensation for the market.

Cons

Cons: Diversity and DEI work are significant issues here. There is also an HR problem. Firstly there is no real HR "department" here, only one employee with limited hours. If they are the issue, it intimidates employees to report anything that makes the workplace harmful without fear of retaliation. During my time there, employees of color were forced to craft presentations on their culture on top of regular work duties. If not, their culture would not be represented at all. It's not BIPOC employees' job to do the diversity work for you. Hire someone with DEI training to help better relay messages surrounding race and culture within the workplace. Now, it takes more than just the 100k pledge; it takes hiring more Black and Brown employees in leadership positions. Management is also very pushy to junior staff. Although you will learn a lot because of this, it can get overwhelming to perform and produce results without your leaders' help. The junior staff is completely overworked with low morale because of this. Overall, my time at the company has taught me a lot about the business in a short time simply because every position wears multiple hats and are tasked with a broad scope of functions. You learn many malleable skills that will advance your career in a short amount of time.

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VSC Response
3y
Thank you for your candor and specific details about your experience at VSC. We’re glad to hear that you learned a lot and will be able to advance your career because of it! By design, we’ve structured the agency to align with the way our clients in early stage tech companies work. This means our team has the chance to learn what they won’t learn in other places until much later in their career. It isn’t always easy and requires a willingness to fail and try again. We strive to have policies in place that create a supportive culture for this, but also acknowledge that it isn’t an environment that fits everyone. We encourage our team to celebrate their backgrounds and perspectives so that we can all have a richer understanding of the world. We don’t specifically seek out our BIPOC team members or expect any one group of people to do the heavy lifting of educating the world about their experiences. Contrary to more traditional thinking, we believe HR/performance is best handled in every day feedback loops between employees and their leads and direct managers. In addition, each of our five Partners are available to support any team member with guidance on internal or external issues. They work across 3 time zones so that someone can always be reached. Our Head of People is there to create policies that champion our team’s needs and hold us all accountable for reaching our individual and collective goals.
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Glassdoor has 72 VSC reviews submitted anonymously by VSC employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if VSC is right for you.