Adknowledge Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

In stark contrast to some of the reviews posted here, I love my job and I'm generally very satisfied with the company. It should be mentioned that Adknowledge is taking steps to become a more personable company; this includes the recent hiring of a VP of HR.

There have only been a few instances where I worked late; more often than not it was due to me just getting wrapped up in what I was doing and losing track of time. Nobody is cracking a whip or coming up with unrealistic deadlines.

 Perhaps it depends on what channel you work in, but some of the other reviews specifically mention scenarios I have never seen. For instance, when I come into work (on time) it's usually a ghost town. Same for when I leave; everyone usually gets up and leaves within 30 minutes of the end of business. That doesn't seem like the backbreaking 70-hr workweek environment I hear mentioned in other reviews...

One of the things I really like about Adknowledge is that managers are expected to be working managers. They are in cubes just like everyone else. In other words, there are no corner offices to complete for. Like it or not, you can't deny that Adknowledge tries their best to maximize ROI on every level of the company.

Having worked for many other companies, it's my belief that Adknowledge is really doing a lot of things right. Yes, the interview process is long and arduous, but the ultimate effect is that everyone has baseline intelligence and ability which exceeds many other companies. Additionally, everyone is up-to-speed on what they're doing and is generally at the top of their game. The company has no dusty old employees which just don't understand these "newfangled computer gizmos" and this is true for every department at all levels.

Cons

The primary downside right now is Adknowledge's reputation amongst developers in the local community. Adknowledge has a lot of disgruntled ex-employees sprinkled around; it's the company that everyone has heard a horror story about, it seems. Our reputation (and an inequality in pay) prevents us from attracting a lot of top-tier local talent from other companies. At a certain level, your best and most effective employees have to be lured away from their current positions with other companies and Adknowledge just doesn't have that pull yet.

Some people in Adknowledge management do pay too close attention to what time a developer's butt hits their chair in the morning. They haven't yet learned the lesson that 8 hours from an effective developer is worth 16 hours from an ineffective one. There are shocking and frankly hilarious company-wide emails that go out about this phenomenon sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

Some of the management is very nice and easy to work with. The salaries are higher than average and you will receive many perks including free lunches, 3 weeks vacation, cheap insurance, and free soda.

Cons

This place will work you very very long hours depending on the position you have. The team I was on was incredibly high stress and they expect you to learn at an incredibly fast pace. If family life is important to you or free time I would say work someplace else.

I hope I never have a job like this again.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be so rude and have more patience with new employees.

Pros

The benefits package is spectacular and the pay is generous. Everything employees do impacts the company in very real and significant ways. Other employees are always spectacular to deal with and everyone has their act together. There is always something new to accomplish and to keep busy with.

Cons

Things can seem too fast paced, but this is only because there is actual work to do. It is easy to get lost in the day-to-day activities, but this is a good problem to have since there is always important work to do.

Advice to Senior Management

Management could improve most by providing more insight on the long-term goals of the business as well as instruction on task prioritization for employees on the larger, more active teams.

Pros

Overall it's a good atmosphere. Most of the employees at the company are talented and you can learn a lot from each other.

Cons

CEO is a micro-manager and changes the commission structure frequently. They have even retroactively reduced commissions on sales people if they have a good month.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to keep your sales department and grow to become a real company, just start paying the standard industry rate and stop playing games.

Pros

You get to work in growing & in-demand field.

They have some of the small perks, like catered lunches, free pop and an after hours beer fridge. They also have regular office events.

On the ad sales side, you have a very big horizon. On-line advertising is growing fast and Adknowledge is really on the leading edge of many of these advertising channels. The space keeps growing and the technology keeps growing, so every 6 to 12 months, you get to sell into something new.

On the technical side, Adknowledge works with a lot of very specific, very leading-edge technologies. They have a lot of problems that most companies just don't have. How do you serve hundreds of millions of ads or e-mails in a day?

Extensive server farms, terabyte databases, high-performance multi-threaded code, cloud computing, non-relational databases. Adknowledge shares a lot of problems with companies like Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Yahoo. If you're in the tech field, you will learn a lot.

And they're a very metrics-driven company. Your resume will have lots of good numbers on it after even just 6 months.

Cons

Adknowledge has over 200 employees, 2 recruiters and no HR department. They consistently have a dozen job openings, but it's mostly job cycling. They're replacing people they've let go or people who have moved on.

There's really no progression within the company because there's no HR department to oversee the process. There are no succession plans, I've seen lots of senior people leave, but no one is promoted to fill the void. The few employees that I have seen "promoted" never received a pay raise. The sales team have had their commissions cut 3 times this year.

IT employees don't have a training budget.

Adknowledge is currently the largest privately-held on-line advertising company. It's the biggest in the industry, but it's not the industry leader. They don't have a well-read blog or a twitter feed (despite having purchased two social media companies). They don't speak at industry events. They don't fund, solicit or promote internal ideas. They don't market.

Because of the company culture lots of people tend to "graduate" from Adknowledge, it's a giant spring-board. It's like a half-way house for talent. They find good people, but the people they find almost inevitably move on. I've seen laid off employees get picked up for a higher salary. I've seen current employees return to previous employers for more money. I've seen employees get picked up by other companies and offered much more money. I've seen employees just plain leave because their moon-lighting jobs paid more.

Advice to Senior Management

It's time to stop cutting corners and take the steps to build a true long-term company.

Industry giant with very little name recognition?
200 person company with no HR department?
20% turnover rates?
200 person tech company, but no QA department?
100 IT employees, but no training or conference budgets? Thousands of $ to hire, but no money to train?
No regular employee reviews, no road-maps for salary increases, giant wage disparities?
No visible succession plans?

Adknowledge has a ton of potential. But it seems far more interested in acquiring new potential than cultivating existing potential.

Pros

Great technical challenges, catered lunches twice a week, a few good mentors to learn from, on The Plaza, occasional work parties and activities outside of work time. It's a better environment if you are young, single and have a lot of extra time to devote to your job.

Cons

The interview process is extremely thorough, 4-6 hours or more, which includes tests, personality test and interviewing with several people. You come into the process thinking that the company really has its act together. However, after being hired, you quickly find out that what they purport before hiring is nothing like the environment you get thrown into. The hiring managers mean well, but there just isn't an "enticing" way to portray the reality of the mess behind the closed doors, so you get a completely false picture.

The company openly admits that the kind of people they are looking for are arrogant and cocky. This can be mistaken for actual confidence, which is completely different. What you end up with is a team of egotistical, attention hungry, know-it-alls who spend more time brown nosing than getting actual work done. In the end, you have too many captains trying to steer the ship and not enough team work to get the job done right.

Management is encouraged to develop a relationship of fear with their subordinates. The idea is that if an employee likes their manager, the manager isn't really doing their job. Management is encouraged to be pushy and force deadlines at the expense of morale and family life, even when deadlines have no basis in reality.

There are exceptions to the rule. Some of the managers are nice and know how to deal with people, but it's rather hit or miss. There are also some people that get hired there that are really talented, great to work with and have lives outside of work. However, because of the general culture, those people tend to not stick around very long, so the turn over is quite high.

The Adknowledge culture, in general, is not a good place to find integrity, professionalism, mentors or other things that may contribute to tangible career growth. Employees are expendable unless they make enough effort to be part of the "club". The company wastes little resources on growing individuals and is not likely to spend much on training conferences or continued schooling opportunities. Instead of using proven motivation and encouragement techniques, the management methods and materials pushed are focused on a bottom line, "people are numbers", mentality.

If you are wanting an employer that recognizes talent, integrity and actual contribution, there are many other companies that would provide better opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

With little exception, the management, starting at the top, is quite inexperienced and unable to actually work with and understand people. A complete overhaul of the culture is needed, with real intent to make it better. Previous attempts to make things better on the surface have failed. If a culture overhaul cannot be accomplished, then the company needs to start portraying themselves realistically to new hires so they know what they are getting into.

Pros

The atmosphere, management and personnel provides a fantastic work place to work. As a start up company, there is a lot room to grow and move up in management. The experience that is gained, is irreplaceable. The current management has some amazing history and a wealth of knowledge to gain from. the CEO is a young and driven man who knows how to take care of his employees and provide his employees a longevity within the organization. The opportunity to make a good living is very possible. Whatever position you take at Adknowledge, it will propel you to many opportunities.

Cons

The company is still growing and searching for additional quality of traffic for all our customers. With that said, the company is continuing to find additional ways to improve to provide the best service possible. As a start up organization, you don't have the efficiency as some other larger companies might have. Traffic is the continual concern which is always being addressed. With the direction that the company is headed... its worth the sacrifice to work hard and reap the benefits that will happen at Adknowledge. If you are looking for a company that can provide a decent service, Adknowledge will be consider a massive force in 2009.

Advice to Senior Management

none