Jumpwire Media Reviews

3.4

60% would recommend to a friend

(7 total reviews)

Gavin McGarry

66% approve of CEO

60% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

7 reviews
1.0
12 Oct 2013

Beware of snake oil salesmen!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Small team means ability to take initiative is there. Great staff members willing to put in the extra hours necessary. Company strives to be on the cutting edge of digital media.

Cons

Management expects the world of underpaid/overworked employees. Casual environment sometimes results in behavior that is disrespectful and borderline abusive. Company frequently is late to pay employees. Programs sold to high-profile clients often fail to deliver results. Not a good company to have on your resume. Short-term contracts offer zero job stability.

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Jumpwire Media Response
12y
It's difficult to read reviews like this from a past employee but the poster brings up some valid points that I would like to address. There seems to be some confusion by the poster between employee and contractor. Employees were paid every two weeks. To ensure timely payment we routinely issued two checks at the beginning of each month to each employee. However, there were many times when I and/or our COO did have to remind contractors to submit their invoices to our accountants to be paid on time. This may have been where the 'late payment' issue came from. This poster was based in our Toronto, Canada office. I personally struggled to adapt to the more reserved and conservative Canadian business culture from the aggressive confrontational style of the New York business environment. I think the "snake oil" comment is unfounded. The social media and digital media environment has few best practices, platforms are being added regularly, and the industry is changing on a daily basis. There is considerable disruption and our clients look to us to help them navigate the change. To that end, we routinely hold back 10% of our fee when we begin a contract. If we do not achieve the measurable results that client and I have agreed upon, they do not have to pay the 10%. Managing client expectations is one of our key objectives at Jumpwire. I have noticed that many of the media companies listed here on Glassdoor have the same "underpaid/overworked" comments in their reviews. At Jumpwire we have tried several different ways of warning potential employees that the learning curve is steep, the hours long, and being good at Facebook in your personal life is much different than advising clients about Facebook for business but all have failed. Instead, we pay potential employees for two days to come and work onsite. We load them up with work and see if they like us and we like them. Finally, it is sad to hear that the poster would not want Jumpwire on their resume. We were voted one of the top 10 most innovative companies in media by Fast Company magazine (along with Twitter, Huffington Post, Univision) and we work with some of the most exciting media clients in the world. However, it is great to hear that this poster feels we strive to stay on the cutting edge of digital media. It is our primary goal and we work hard to stay at the front of the pack. I appreciate the feedback. Gavin
1.0
23 Jan 2018

Disappointing Experience

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Company had access to good clients at the time, and if there's a real team in place, can do a lot of interesting things - You can work from home some days of the week - Ability to test new things on decent sized clients - Independence to complete tasks and deal with clients - Worked with good coworkers, at the time

Cons

- the CEO's style of management is to isolate, intimidate and to make examples of employees, there's lots of yelling, and harassing of employees, it's not uncommon for him to make employees cry or force them to listen to inappropriate conversations - appears to have a good client list, but overpromises and under delivers, most good clients leave and a lot of long term clients are friends or acquaintences - lots of turnover due to poor management, company went from 10+ people in 2017 to 2, this has happened a few times, cannot scale to grow - can't afford to pay people competitively to the cities the company operate out of - relies on freelance/UpWork employees to replace full time staff when they leave

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Jumpwire Media Response
8y
I'm sorry that this person had a disappointing experience working at Jumpwire. I have addressed some of the writer’s concerns below. The CEO's style: Yes, I can be intimidating, as many CEOs are, and I've been told that before. I ask tough questions of my staff and my job is to ensure that our client's get the best service possible for the money they give us. That requires transparency and accountability. When you make mistakes you have to be accountable and in a boutique agency that can be difficult and overwhelming. We use a lot of technology and software to provide our clients with leading-edge real-time data and information on social media. We work with some of the largest brands in the world and the stakes are considerable as we are posting on behalf of someone else's brand. There is very little room for error. We have in-depth ongoing training, supportive mentoring system, continuous checks and balances, regular internal update meetings, and we run on Slack so that everyone can see immediately if someone on the team needs help. Many people who come to work at Jumpwire struggle with the pace and the amount of knowledge required to operate in the ever-changing social media environment. We do have heated debates and discussions. I want people who are passionate about what they do. However, isolating, making examples, and harassing employees is not something I or anyone at the company tolerates. It is okay not to get along but it is not okay to get personal. We have reprimanded and fired people who were bullies towards other employees. We work hard to ensure that people did not work more than 50 hours a week and that weekends are time off. I am a passionate person and this is my company. I think the person writing this is mistaking yelling for passion and crying for emotional release. It's okay if people cry at work. This is a very demanding job. In the two ‘crying’ cases I witnessed the employees were overwhelmed with their job and we worked on how to help them mitigate this. They came away stronger and better at their jobs. We hire very intelligent people who are able to change and adapt quickly and easily to a high-pressure environment. We spend a considerable amount of time training employees in the Jumpwire Social Media Method. It's why we are one of the best in the world at what we do. I do not recall ever forcing an employee to listen to an inappropriate conversation and without the details, it's hard for me to respond. For difficult conversations HR or a senior manager was always in the room as is standard procedure at most companies. Regarding our client list being my friends or acquaintances I would say that 20% of our clients are people I know from over 20+ years in the media industry. The rest are referrals from other clients or people in the industry. As for overpromising and under delivering the writer knows this is false. We routinely end client contracts if we feel we are not able to deliver value. There are many companies we want to work with so continuing to charge a company for social media services when it is providing no value to the brand is not a productive use of our time. Further, it leads to employees leaving Jumpwire as they want to work on clients in which they can make a difference. Turnover happens regularly at social media agencies and Jumpwire is no different but we have changed that by slicing our Jumpwire Social Media Method into very small parts and hiring expert freelancers to carry out the tasks. From passionate writers who are experts in a client’s particular sector, scheduling experts with legal and technical backgrounds, creative people who create significant value for our client’s brands with their talents, to our proofreaders with Masters degrees in English. Our turnover at Jumpwire was due to our hiring people with the incorrect skill set for our jobs. We hired generalists rather than specialists. Regarding the ability to scale and grow I would agree. Scaling knowledge-based companies are very difficult. However, we have made significant changes at Jumpwire since this person left the company by creating small bit sized packages, like our social audit or the platform optimization package, that new clients can purchase at low cost to build trust, get to know us and our methods without considerable investment. People set their own salaries at Jumpwire. Thanks to Salary Expert and Pay Scale we routinely ask people to tell us what they are worth and justify it. The writer would know that as we routinely give significant raises to people who are valuable to the company as well as purchasing mobile phones, high-end computers, and offering travel opportunities for long-term employees. Freelancers do not replace full-time staff. They replace a part of the full-time person’s job and in many cases do a better job. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Gavin
5.0
11 Oct 2017

Account Manager

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fast pace Great CEO Good company to learn Fun team Great clients

Cons

If you can even say it is a con. Social media jobs all have the same issue, you are always kind of working.

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