AOL Reviews

Pros

Fantastic benefits - the best in the industry. Amazing maternity leave, awesome 401k, impressive salaries and bonuses. Work on some strong brands (HuffPost, Engadget, etc)

Cons

The layers to get anything accomplished make progress and innovation impossible. No clear direction on brand strategy. HR not involved.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in people that are good, and find a better way to weed out folks who aren't. Too many people are hiding behind the curtain of a huge company that doesn't see that they aren't a value but a hindrance.

Pros

Back in the day this was a great place to work, lots of energy and people cared about the brand.

Cons

Senior management is incompetent they manage by re-org, the talent is being wasted and big titles are handed out based on friendships.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire yourselves

Pros

Great benefits, smart people, competitive salaries, fun environment, great industry.

Cons

Unfocused and inexperienced management, too political, change in executive leadership every year. Flavor of the month type of projects - they don't work out, then layoffs and change focus. Performance is based on a curve and if you don't have a good relationship with your manager, can easily end up on the bottom, even if you performed very well.

Pros

As everyone says, the people. Some of the most creative, hard-working, results-oriented people in the industry still. Work / Life balance a definite plus.

Cons

Exec Management. The egos are astounding at the exec level, up to the CEO. Constant change of direction. We are are going to group by function...no! we are going to group by location...no! we are going to be in "towns" with mayors and you''ll work on an off-ramp....no! we're going to organize differently. enough is enough....

Advice to Senior Management

take some leadership classes....lose the egos, and stop looking out for your cronies. people that worked at AOL in the past, actually DO have a clue what they are doing, and actually DID build a successful business at one point.

Pros

Amazing coworkers and direct manager, wonderful flexible work schedule, great opportunities for professional growth, good benefits, fun projects and media to work with

Cons

Little work life balance, constant change in focus and priorities, senior management has no focus, Huffington Post acquisition has nearly killed the AOL brand, too many lay offs and instability

Advice to Senior Management

Focus!!!! Stop trying to play catch up!!! Lead and innovate. Preserve the AOL brand and stop letting HuffPost land grab the entire media space

Pros

It was a great place to work because people were happy, the place was always energize, the leaders were jazzed, people were creative - always coming up with great new ideas. People were encouraged to do great work and the rewards were awesome!

Cons

AOL was never the same when Steve Case left the company. The company has been going downhill from that point forward...

Advice to Senior Management

Be the innovative company AOL once was... it seems you've just given up and are just hanging to maintain what you already have. The advertising business isn't cutting it.

Pros

Its a good company to grow and freedom to do what is considered a good idea , gives to take the ball and run with it. This type of freedom is difficult to get any where else

Cons

not able catch with market speed

Advice to Senior Management

get your act fast and clean up the remaining mess

Pros

I met a lot of good people who worked hard who had a lot of good ideas and were driven to succeed.

Cons

Unfortunately the company did not work hard for it's employees whom they treated as expendable instead of investments, a real shame.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to think more about their individual groups instead of concentrating on their short term glory and seeing who has the latest luxury car in the garage.

Pros

You'll work with great people who are passionate about the brand and the technologies that made it great. Work/life balance is fantastic with lots of flexibility to work from home when needed and generous benefits.

Cons

It is frustrating often playing catch-up with our competitors; it seems the culture of innovation is lacking. Management direction changes swiftly, and often without adequate communication or buy-in from the rank-and-file. The employee base is shell-shocked from years of perennial layoffs and there's a definite culture of fear that stifles productive risk-taking and honest criticism.

Advice to Senior Management

First and foremost, listen to the veteran employees. They were the ones that made the brand great to begin with, and they have the creativity, passion and talent to do it again.

Pros

Atmosphere, benefits and pay, it is still a major media entity with a lot of traffic and eyeballs despite all its troubles

Cons

No clear strategy to turnaround company. Feels like it's been in a freefall for years with annual layoffs without anything to look forward to.

Advice to Senior Management

Pick a direction and ride it into the ground. Changing and restructuring all the time doesn't fool anyone on Wall Street or in the office.