Pros
- if you can quickly write quality content on almost any subject, you will be in a position where your work is relatively easy - work will get heavily edited almost seemingly at random, so you don’t have to feel bad about failing on the first pass - great team of staff writers who are all extremely supportive of each other - if you’re interested in B2B content writing, that is the primary focus of the company’s client base - i.e. finance, healthcare, education, logistics, etc - good way to quickly get some experience or cred for early career content writers - either out of college or career changers, as a general rule - they aren’t willing to pay for experienced content writers or incentivize career growth. - some decently high profile clients
Cons
- tracks even non-billable hours to the minute, which demonstrates that management doesn’t trust employees to be efficient, and even has minimum “utilization” hours for what percent of your work must be billable - management is extremely condescending and treats lower level employees like they are children - no clear structure to employee pay - everyone makes wildly different salaries (even at the same employment level) and pay is a very difficult subject to broach with management - they often make you feel like you’re worth less than you are and definitely pay on the lower end of the range for this industry. Just as an idea, a new member on the team was making 38k - which is abhorrent for a ny based agency with a decent client base and listed among the “fastest growing companies” in the country. pay seems to be loosely tied to experience, talent and productivity - which is subjectively evaluated by management without an accurate explanation to employees . - bonuses are dangled as a big part of salaries - but most bonuses are minimal compared to what some are told they will get in interviews - high turnover - rarely do writers stay longer than 1 or two years - the ceo says the word “retard” even to clients - must be comfortable leading client meetings as a writer, and often working as a strategist without additional compensation - if you’re looking for great portfolio pieces, that’ll be tough. I worked here for a decent amount of time and have maybe one or two things I feel comfortable putting in a portfolio. Your work gets heavy internal edits (usually by the actual CEO) or upper level management - which often inserts typos or just completely incoherent thoughts - with they claim that they’re actually helping align the piece with the clients voice - but in reality everything is edited to fit the style of the editor - smaller clients are typically edited by other writers, and the work is often better as a result - weird/useless mandatory training that has almost nothing to do with writing - feedback is basically a crapshoot based on who you have as your editor - some editors are just difficult to work with and really drag the process out for no reason, so don’t take it personally - the funny part is the reception from the client is usually identical regardless of which editor you have - you’ll receive writing coaching and advice from two management members who are not at all writers - even specific grammar or punctuation advice that is completely off base. - no hr- just hired a third party hr person as I was leaving - this is more like a content writing position than copywriting. As most of the work is blog posts or landing page copy - can sometimes feel like working at a content farm where you don’t have enough time to put out quality work - the CEO works insane hours and complains to her employees about it. it’s fine if that’s your life and you love working - but don’t complain to your employees who you are paying 50k a year and make them feel guilty about working normal hours, that’s not that cool of a thing to do. - management often interrupts or talks over you in one on one meetings; dismisses your concerns etc - or if you pushback on feedback you think is unfair they tell you to stop getting defensive - just a little manipulative in general/ there seems to be a lack of respect for younger employees (which is literally everyone bc the salary range is basically currently 40-60k for “tier 1” or “tier 2”writers) - I mentioned getting paid more for working as an “acting content strategist” on a couple accounts - and was basically told that “if I’m motivated by money, then we can have a future discussion about what kind of goals I need to meet to get a salary bump.” Which is pretty dismissive and manipulative. - management acts (and I’ve noticed this with a lot of small companies) that you should be willing to sell your soul to them for minimum wage - like theyre offering you something more valuable than monetary compensation just by giving you the opportunity to work for them.