Zoosk reviews about "new ceo"

The product is crap. There are a lot of things wrong with it, but after 11 years, the company has done little to address them. These issues were the intentional brain children of the original founders. We've had opportunities to change them, to give the users a better experience, but we're stuck in this "dating is a numbers game" mindset. Zoosk is all about quantity over quality - throw a billion profiles at the user, many of which are irrelevant to her, and eventually she'll find a handful of people to talk to when we should be showing quality matches based on what she's looking for and coach her on widening her results if she wants. So at this point, do we really blame the product? No. No one has taken a risk to change our dating model even though we're supposed to #sayNoToTheStatusQuo. No one has taken a risk to give the users more of what they want. I'm not saying we should give them everything they want, but as far as I can tell, no one seems to think that if we solve some of their complaints we'll have happier users and word of mouth will do its work. Well, word of mouth is actively working, and the word is we stink. We talk about being innovative - or trying to be - but everyone thinks innovation is about some fancy new alien thing. But at this point in this industry, innovation can simply be providing an easy-to-use, comfortable, and customizable dating experience, like giving users more control over their search, because no one's doing that (or at least doing it well). But Zoosk is very much against this because again "dating is a numbers game." Well, it is, if you want a crappy dating experience so I guess that's what we're happy selling. Online daters are tired of gimmicks. They simply want satisfying, fulfilling dates, or at least a fair experience trying to find them, not games or some weird unintuitive design we think is great because we've been staring at it too long. Our most recent employee engagement survey (which by the way these are incredibly ineffective) revealed that many of us are unhappy with the product. This is terribly sad because many of us give 100+%. The problem is the product, at its core, has not evolved. Some parts look different, but it all still works the same. A lot of changes are made simply to monetize more parts of the product, which yes we need to make money, but we need to improve old features too, make them more user friendly, and convey/increase the value users are getting from these features. I also think it's funny how after a feature or campaign rollout we get some nominal uptick like 2% increase in signups or 52 new subs this month, and suddenly we're supposed to celebrate this. Sure, it's better than nothing, but it's like scraping coins off the sidewalk, and guess what? We've been making our money this way for a long time. I'm not ungrateful for whatever gains we get. My issue is that we have so much more potential and we haven’t tapped it. We just need to take some leaps to get there. (No one wants to jump...) Now, we have some new leadership. It sounds like the new CEO Steven McArthur is grounded in reality, enough to say that the product needs serious work and that the product, if it's GOOD, will drive our success. It's such an obvious concept, yet no one has said it out loud until this guy did. We've also brought in some new folks to help with product/brand direction and process management. This is great, but given how dysfunctional the company is, I'm not sure how effective these people can be. All that said, I give the CEO a year. He's going to realize how nutty this place is, and he's going to bail. On to the company culture... it's definitely gone downhill. This place used to be buoyant. People weren't always at the grindstone like they are now. The new office feels very corporate too, like we're working in a call center. #ifTheresFunToBeHadWeHadIt until the budget was decimated. Since we're in the black, it would be nice if the company started investing in its employees again. They expect us to #dontStopCaring even though they don’t care. Every day it's all business. And don't get me started on the "happy hours"; that's just a token. At one time it seemed like the company was taking our feedback seriously regarding trust and transparency, then it stopped. The transparency is gone, everything is a secret or swept under the rug, people lie to cover up things. I kind of think people use secrecy as a way to power-trip. Also certain people, some in authoritative positions, some who think they are, think we're #betterTogether if the rest of us keep our mouths shut even though we're told to #speakUp. Dissent and frankness are not welcome. And we have to be careful with our hall monitor lurking around. Oh, and some people easily get their panties in a wad and take things too personally. It's actually laughable at how immature it is. It's been said that some people here are favorites of management and other pseudo-authoritative people. Yes. So to get ahead you don't have to #beADoer. If you kiss butt, flirt, or doll yourself up like a princess, you'll do well here. There are definitely office politics too. I suppose that exists everywhere. It's just that I thought our management was bigger than that hence the disappointment. Also, if you read any of the recent positive reviews here, take those with a grain of salt, especially the ones that have worked 1 year or so. These kids are still in their honeymoon phase (everyone goes through that), but they'll soon realize they stepped in doo doo. See, moving out of the Tenderloin doesn't solve that. The problem is not the neighborhood, sweetheart. It's your circumstances. By the way, the hash tags are our company values. They don't mean jack to me anymore, I'm not sure if they ever did. They’ve been overused and thrown around to the point of becoming uninspiring. Our values should revolve around our product. That will make it real clear how it's supposed to work and what it should accomplish. Collectively they would be our north star and the standards we hold our ideas to. Parting words...Since Zoosk is an "engaged employer," I await someone's response of how sorry they are that I'm not having a good experience at Zoosk but that the company has made a lot of strides and bent over backwards for the employees yadda yadda. I'll say this - it's not all about what has actually been said or done. It's also about what hasn't. It's like negative space. We don't see it, but we do. It's not intended to be there, but it is. That negative space, that missing thing, has just as much impact and presence as what is there. It's time to acknowledge it. P.S. to the engaged employer if you reply: No need to suggest that we meet in one of your squatted conference rooms and discuss how we can make things better. Thanks, but I'm no fool.