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Catalyst Online

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Catalyst Online Reviews

3.1

52% would recommend to a friend

(70 total reviews)

Beth LeTendre

66% approve of CEO

38% positive business outlook

Catalyst Online has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 70 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Catalyst Online 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

70 reviews
1.0
10 Dec 2014

A good stepping stone, but don't get comfortable

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There's a good chance you'll work on some big clients, which is a great resume builder. You get to see how other sides of the media business work outside of search and social. Work/life balance is good only if you don't care about being guilted into staying late (and if your team is somewhat competent). The job titles are also severely fluffed up at least one or two levels, which fools a lot of recruiters. But that can also be a con (see below).

Cons

In 2 years working in the NY office, I can honestly say that Catalyst is the most poorly run company I've ever encountered. Senior leadership has no direction and is making it up as they go along. They merged all Group M search and social with no plan in place, which led to understaffing, mass confusion, budget cuts, and caused anyone with any sense to jump ship. Doesn't help that HQ is in the middle of nowhere in the outskirts of Boston. The job titles don't mean anything. They hire people as "managers" with less than 1 year experience. A tip to the recruiters poaching from Catalyst - if the person started out as a manager and never got a promotion, that means they were entry level and never got any better. There were a lot of those people. Also ask them if they ever actually managed anyone (answer will be no). This leads to "directors" (and sometimes even their bosses) stuck doing menial work that associate level people should be doing.

1.0
18 Oct 2012

Frustrating Waste of Potential

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Awesome Enterprise level clients through GroupM. Great resume builder for that reason.

Cons

Leadership has remained the same for the life of the company and they've reached a point of growth where they should bring in some leaders with more experience at the level they've grown to. With the exception of Benjamin Spiegel, none of them have any real clue about SEO in 2012 or innovation, despite their attempts at re-branding and throwing that word around without anything behind it. The innovation they are claiming is stuff every other decent Search agency has been doing for 2 years by now. It's embarrassing to work there if you care about being the best. With the exception of a dedicated few really great people, most people who work there either don't care because they have been beaten down by frustration, or like going to work to chill and getting away with it. Sadly, there is a very limited career path for those talented people they do have hence their issues with turnover, particularly in the NYC office. *Please note, the positive reviews on this site are a direct result of a concerted effort to solicit them internally to do damage control for the negative real ones.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 70 Reviews

Glassdoor has 73 Catalyst Online reviews submitted anonymously by Catalyst Online employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Catalyst Online is right for you.