Hawke Media Reviews

This place is a complete mess. If you have any respect for yourself and your mental health stay as far away from this company as you can. The CEO Erik is completely self obsessed and has no idea what is going on in the company. He doesn’t care at all about his employees well being in the slightest bit. The marketing book that he released was written entirely by his staff and he slapped his name on it and didn’t give a single person any additional money for it or any credit. He is running a marketing sweatshop with young, low skilled workers that he can exploit and pay way below market while working them to the point of constant anxiety attacks and extreme mental distress. Hawke promises to train you but they don’t. You will immediately be put on clients with no support, no guidance, and constant berating from Tony and Erik to “work harder and get more done”. Neither of them have any emotional intelligence or empathy for other people. Tony is a subpar business operator who sexually harasses women constantly, and berates and gaslights everyone every chance he gets, he has no ability to take accountability for his actions and how he destroys people. He acts like he has your back but he talks poorly about every single person in the company, especially Erik. They are completely misaligned on how the company should be and is ran. Tony is incapable of running a business and blames everyone else for his constant failures. This place is the most toxic work environment I’ve ever been in and I can’t believe it’s still running. Between the terrible work they do for clients to the constant abuse and mistreatment that happens within the company. They just keep hiring young people and running them to the ground. I’ve never seen so many unhappy, stressed out people in one company in my life. All of these 5 star reviews you’re reading with 1 sentence pros and cons are there because Erik and Tony push new employees to write nice things about the company before they get to experience what it really is to work there. Their egos are so big they can’t realize what a terrible and disgusting environment they’ve created and continue to perpetuate. They tell you Hawke will allow you to work anywhere but that’s a lie. The lack of proper training and management you get there doesn’t give you all of the skills you need to apply them to future jobs. You’ll be stuck churning through clients who were completely miss sold (just so they can make a buck) and you will rarely get to work with a client for longer than 2-3 months which doesn’t allow you to build the skills you need to actually run marketing at a brand. Not to mention their reputation is so bad in the business world, Hawke on a resume is no longer a name that excites companies and makes them want to hire you. This place is a joke. A frat house ran by two extremely immature men who think they know it all. Save yourself the therapy, mental breakdowns, constant gaslighting and manipulation and go work somewhere else. It will be the best decision you’ve made for yourself.

Soul Crushing - I say this because working at Hawke Media is a GRIND. The business model is set up to be successful strictly surrounding numbers. It's a warehouse/sweatshop environment where you're expected to spit out as much work as possible. You can typically expect to manage a minimum of 6, sometimes up to 11 clients at a time. This is whats going to build that "book of work" I discussed earlier. A typical work day is from 9:30 - 7 and you may need to work from home quite frequently to keep up during busy times. The good news is, if you are working late you will most likely have company! After working there long enough, I literally negatively changed as a person. From the high levels of stress I developed depression and anxiety, and pushed away a lot of my friends. Granted, everyone's different and if you thrive in this kind of environment you may have a more positive outcome. This is where the "Soul Crushing" comes from. To the above note, when I say "manage clients" I mean everything surrounding manage clients that I can - project management, relationship management, strategic management, execution of project, scheduling, you name it. One of the things about Hawke Media is that everyone is responsible for their own clients. This SHOULD be changing though as they are finally going to be bringing in Account Managers. The office space is incredibly lacking, and very dirty. If you are at all a germaphobe, don't work here. They are going to be getting a new office space soon which should be much nicer, but without some sort of work-force to keep the place clean, it will still be dirty / messy. Very cheap. You are going to be paid way under market for your position - which is why they mostly hire young talent out of school. If it's your first job, or you are making a career change Hawke's a great place to work. When your 6 month review comes around, it takes a lot of effort to get a small raise. Also, raises aren't really based on your individual merit - it's based on the success of your team & channel. So, the amount of money you can make is completely dependent on everyone else you work with and not yourself. This makes things very disheartening come raise time. Also, they give everyone tiny desks from IKEA that are under $100 each and pass around old desk chairs for everyone to use. Hopefully that all changes with the new office. You will work with some VERY uninspiring clients. New to market, no idea what's going on or how to succeed. Needing you to wear multiple hats for them.. And sometimes just incredibly boring products / ideas. I frequently would think "look what the cat dragged in" when new clients would be assigned. A lot of them are destined to fail without our help, so when they don't see improvements you have to have very stressful / upsetting conversations and act as a punching bag.