Pros
Most of the people were truly lovely, kind, accommodating and great to work with. I had a wonderful time speaking to the jr level staff and the account managers.
Cons
I worked here for less than a year and interviewed for a different role then when I received my offer it was for a different role, I ended up taking it, but there was no conversation about how they thought this met my level of experience or why the offer was a different role. They hired about three people during the time I was there. I was assigned a "buddy" who ended up taking another role at another company, the buddy was very helpful and wonderful to work with. I asked after they left who I should be going to for questions and was not assigned a new person until about 6 weeks later.
It is a given that PR is a fast-paced industry and that deadlines and demands can be a lot. As seen in the company responses on here: "Anyone who joins our team receives clear roles and responsibilities from the start (this information is included in the job post, interview process, and offer letter.) this was not at all what I saw. I spoke to multiple people who had been at the company for years who said they did not really get a JD, The JD I received was different from what my boss shared with me when I asked for it.
AI will be pushed on you. AI is expected here, I understand the option to use it but to not use it at Offleash did not seem like an option. This was pretty disappointing especially without any conversation around the ethical concerns.
In my second month of employment, I shared with my manager that I was going to speak to people I worked with for feedback on how to improve. She had agreed that this was a good idea. My manager was tough to meet with and get ahold of a lot of the time. We did not really have a regular meeting cadence and when I asked if she would like me to set it up and she had said that it was something she would do. That didn't happen.
In my last week of employment here, I had a check-in with my manager early in the week. On Tuesday, she sent a recap of the call showing areas for improvement as well as things she shared were going well. On Thursday evening, I received a message from her asking to meet Friday morning. When I got on the call Friday morning, it was my manager and HR.
Disappointing is a massive understatement of my time here. It takes two to tango, and I know that there were mistakes I made as anyone in corporate would expect less than 3 months into a new job. To give someone feedback then fire them 3 days later is something I have never experienced. The training felt hap-hazard. They stated I was not preforming to the level of the role, and 3 days after I received my first written feedback of my employment. This felt like the company was trying to create a pretext for my firing. I heard from multiple other people at the company that "this kind of termination was not really a new thing."
Most of upper management that I interacted seemed like a cliquey mean girls club. This was very disappointing and left me feeling very negative after many interactions with them. Much of this felt twofaced.
The company did not give me my handbook to sign until over a month into my employment. HR admitted that she forgot to send it to me and also shared on this call that another recent hire had not received it.
The "work-life balance" did not seem to be such. My boss had shared that she and others were unclear what hours I was working, yet I had shared I was on ET from the start and communicated this to those I worked with on the day to day. This was something most people on ET seemed to feel, tons of messages after hours and I ended up being on late very often. This is expected in this industry, however this ended up being the norm a lot of the time. Responses are expected in 10-20 minutes, this left me feeling like I did not have time to do work because I was constantly getting messages. There was a constant state of stress that many in upper management seemed to impose upon junior staff.
