About Reviews

Pros

Reasonable hours, flexible environment, opportunity to mold your job to your interests, fun people, office is in a good location

Cons

Compensation isn't the highest, also could be better with career pathing, have to fight for every dollar of a raise or else they will underpay you

Advice to Senior Management

Promote and reward the people who care about doing a great job and show initiative to make about a great place to work and an industry leader

Pros

targeted inventory, so it's desirable to advertiser

Cons

lack of direction at times

Advice to Senior Management

be nice

Pros

Face paced company with some opportunity if you search for it. The people are a great bunch to work with.

Cons

Moving towards a very structured company. Moral was on the decline, with high turnover. Options became worthless. Not a typical online firm.

Advice to Senior Management

offer more opportunity with counseling, a chance to cross function with other departments. Transparency was poor which made moral decline.

Pros

They are a stable profitable dot com. They have a great laid back work environment. Morale is good.

Cons

About doesn't take risks, the business is overly focused on its core competencies not on innovation.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest time in innovation, the talent is there, it's a missed opportunity.

Pros

Flexibility
On-the-job training
Management is responsive to ideas and issues
Good communication with employees
Ongoing development of tools and processes to make your job easier and improve the quality of the product delivered

Cons

Compensation could be better. This is an industry-wide issue, however. There are other frustrations at times in terms of getting things done, but no major drawbacks.

Advice to Senior Management

Editorial leadership is strong. I hope that the company will continue to innovate to remain competitive. Celia Irvine is a smart CEO who seems to be focusing on the right things.

Pros

writing about a topic you are familiar with and getting paid for it. The other guides are always friendly, helpful and eager to make connections with you.

Cons

The metrics system is always out of whack, it's hard to tell if you are getting paid what you are work because the numbers are not figured by an independent metrics company. About.com decides what to pay you. Apparently, the metrics system is going through an overhaul, though, so hopefully that is fixed in the near future.

Advice to Senior Management

the GUides need more of a community feel in the workplace. Since we are all telecommuters, we should be encouraged to use the list serves and forums to not only talk about work, but to talk socially, too. Networking is a huge part of our success and will inevitably lead to more crosslinking.

Pros

The people tend to be really smart, friendly and fun (for the most part). While I was there, I was able to craft my career to my interests quite a bit and was supported in doing so. The content has continued to improve over the years as better writers are hired.

Cons

The speed at which decisions are made is sometimes frustratingly slow. Some of the work can be pretty repetitive. There's some division between the different groups for really no good reason. It just means that information isn't shared like it should be and interaction across groups can sometimes be tense.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust the people who work for you more.