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      Brainjolt

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      Brainjolt Reviews

      2.5

      38% would recommend to a friend

      (40 total reviews)

      28% positive business outlook

      Brainjolt has an employee rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars, based on 40 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Brainjolt employee rating is 33% below average for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      40 reviews
      1.0
      15 Sept 2018

      The Worst Little Company You've Never Heard Of

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Who doesn't love Pasadena? But that is about it. The “perks” (Netflix, book-budget, “unlimited” PTO) are distractions and don’t add more than MAYBE $20 a month to your bank account. Just a way to distract you from the day to day hatred of your soon-to-be-ending job. The rank and file staff are hard-working, kind, generally pleasant people, who unfortunately have to report into a cold, dark workplace everyday to get their spirits crushed in the name of their bosses ego. The company is small, which used to mean it had lots of room for growth and potential to expand your role in the company, but now they just bring in outside people and never promote from internally, which has caused most everyone with talent to leave. Seriously, if you don’t believe in your team, why did you even hire us?

      Cons

      Unlimited PTO is a lie. They’ll ask you to work during your promised, scheduled vacation-time and if you resist, you will risk termination. H.R. is non-existent and any complaint you have gets you labeled as hostile and forced into mandatory "attitude adjustment" classes. You will get hired to do one thing - most likely something you are very good at and passionate about - and then asked to do something you have never been trained for, something you frankly do not care about nor ever intended to pursue...and then get fired when the new position doesn’t go well. Brainjolt is a very bad company with no potential for success. They have had flashes of promise through the years but each time something or someone with potential comes along, that project or person gets squashed and run out by incompetent, jealous, praise-starved leadership who will give you directives and then call you a liar to your face about them. The CEO is self-appointed, no-talent trainwreck who has no board to report to which gives him unbridled control. Sounds fun, right?!? When things are going well, he heaps 100% of the credit on himself and when there is a down period (which is often), he passes the blame to “the algorithm” or “a couple of bad hires.” No, YOU expanded the company based on what you considered to be “hacking” (lol) the algorithm. Own up to it. And YOU made the terrible hires. Own up to it. He is the least qualified person to lead in the entire company. His decisions are personally responsible for the incredibly high turnover in the company and why ultimately, Brainjolt will go under. He has never had an original, creative idea in his life, but does love to take creative ideas from others and then pass them off on his own. Man, what’s not to like? Many internally have expressed a much-needed structure shift to those around him but the foolish pride of the CEO will not relinquish his reigns, no matter how much common sense says that he should. His partner and the company’s TRUE founder, who from all appearances is well-meaning - just unable to keep up with the times and the changing media environment - has already fled ship and left the office. Consider the team inspired! There are some incredibly talented people in upper-management, but unfortunately for the in-house team they all live out of state and don’t get to witness the CEO’s day-to-day nonsense and incessant meddling. To his credit, there is a glimmer of possibility that he realizes he doesn’t know what he is doing and has recently taken steps to put bodies between him and the staff. But unfortunately, those people ALSO are grossly incompetent which has led to even more turmoil and for talented staff to leave for greener pastures. Which, is literally ANYWHERE. This place is a dump.

      avatar
      Brainjolt Response
      6y
      OK, this one is intense. But it’s been about a year, so I think we’re ready to respond… First off, I want to say with complete sincerity, I am really sorry that Brainjolt was such a rotten experience for you. There is a lot that could be discussed and worked through in your review, but obviously it wouldn’t benefit either of us to address it point by point. So let me just say that even though you are (or hopefully, were) really pissed at us, we take your opinions and other similar feedback seriously. In the time since you’ve been here, we’ve overhauled benefits, begun handling PTO differently, instituted much more thorough HR processes, promoted from within several times, and even tweaked the org chart to spread management responsibilities among an increasingly effective leadership team and to put our CEO’s focus on solving business problems. And perhaps the most concrete suggestion you make that we’ve taken is that the team is now fully remote. And we hope they’ll enjoy that like you predicted they would. Obviously, I disagree with you about Brainjolt’s trajectory — the team is more unified and focused than it’s ever been and we’re on track for our highest revenue year yet. BUT given your experience here, I totally understand your dismal outlook on the company. Again, I’m sorry that you were a part of one of the more painful Brainjolt eras. Maybe after reading this you’re rolling your eyes and telling me to go ---- myself. I’d get that. But I hope and trust that with some distance between you and Brainjolt, you’re much happier now. -Abraham
      2.0
      16 Mar 2018

      Initial review would have been positive but then slowly went downhill

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      -Flexible Paid Time off however "unlimited PTO" is a little misleading as it is a demanding startup and, depending on your manager, you'll be pressured into staying and guilted if you leave. -Good office location (unless you're in a wheelchair, then you can't actually get into the office)

      Cons

      -Culture was something they stressed but actually did little to enforce and made a lot of hires of people that did not remotely fit the culture. -Leadership does not have the experience for the growth the company needs to succeed and many new leadership hires don't make sense for the position they are in. -Direction and initiatives are changing rapidly so nothing gets completed fully and those responsible for the abandoned projects look bad -The company has a terrible habit of putting new responsibilities on people that have nothing to do with their original job nor do they have the qualifications or experience to do it well. -The company lets people go constantly without any training to replace those individuals even when they hand off the responsibilities to another employee -The have let go of employees for vaguely unlawful reasons that were likely driven by money -There is little opportunity to grow as they will almost never identify individuals strong suits and will make an outside higher -There is a constant negative pressure from many people in the leadership roles -Many people in "leadership" sit on their computer all day doing nothing because that literally have nothing to do since they delegated it all off to others, which many of them they eventually let go

      avatar
      Brainjolt Response
      8y
      As much as I’d like to sit here and defend Brainjolt I think it would be more helpful to own up to some of the criticism put forward in this review… Some of the observations they made are the unavoidable downsides of who we are at Brainjolt and what we do. For better or worse… * We’re learning as we go. * We have to continually adapt in order to survive and thrive in the world of online publishing. * We sometimes put people in roles that their work history hasn’t specifically prepared them for. * We pressure our teams to hit their goals. * And, yes, we occasionally have to make the extremely difficult decision to let people go. And then some of the other critiques in this review are observations of straight-up weaknesses of ours, no excuses to be made... * Our culture isn’t always what we want it to be. * We do not have strong systems in place for training (yet). * We could always do better at giving credit. * And in general, communication in the company should be clearer and more motivating. We have all the struggles that you’d expect in a small company founded by two introverts. We’re working to improve. There is only one specific point I’d like to address somewhat in our defense… I know absolutely nothing about a formal report to HR of a physical threat being made. I don’t know who this happened to, who did it, when it happened, or what the threat was. Obviously, I can’t ask questions back to an anonymous review, but I wish I could hear more about this so that I could resolve it. We value a peaceful and respectful workplace and have always done our best to maintain that. Perhaps we haven’t always succeeded in that ideal, but I can promise that a threat to someone’s well-being would be clearly addressed if I or anyone else on our leadership team knew about it. As disheartening as it can be, a negative review is more helpful than a positive one if the goal is to get better. We want to get better at Brainjolt, so I appreciate these criticisms. We’re taking them seriously. Thanks for giving your input, Anonymous Reviewer, and thanks to the rest of you for reading their review and my response. -Abraham, Founder
      1.0
      16 Apr 2018

      A Horrible Company To Work For Because of the Incompetent Leadership Team

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      -Pasadena is a nice place to work -Good fringe benefits (netflix, spotify) -Non Leadership staff are hardworking and dedicated

      Cons

      -Hands down the worst leadership team I've ever experienced -Actual Benefits are weak -I would be amazed if it stayed in business past Q3 -Everyone working there is currently looking for a new job elsewhere

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      ReviewsBrainjolt reviews

      Glassdoor has 53 Brainjolt reviews submitted anonymously by Brainjolt employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Brainjolt is right for you.