Arbitron Reviews

Pros

Great company great people and benefits

Cons

Honestly not sure. Its a good company. In life you have ups and downs. I dont like the new bonus structure but its not bad and it makes sense.

Advice to Senior Management

I honestly really like the management at arbitron. They have an open door policy and answer your questions even when they are not directly related to the task at hand but still relevant.

Pros

Great training program administered by excellent trainers. Opportunity to work with gifted and enthusiastic co-workers. Pleasant environment to work in.

Cons

Repitition of tasks and working split shift late in the evenings could be difficult. Little opportunity to get up, stretch

Advice to Senior Management

The call center could be overly loud sometimes making it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand and hear responses.

Pros

For professional level jobs, significant flexibility in hours, time off, working from home
Very interesting industry, with exciting growth opportunities
Replacement of last CFO

Cons

Slow pace of decision-making
Objectives not set for performance
Dominant market share means company is slow to respond to market

Advice to Senior Management

Decide if you are serious about pursuing new growth strategies and dedicate appropriate resources to the effort. Start working to regain employee confidence after the departure of the last CEO.

Pros

It pays well, thats about it.

Cons

Your unable to take time off at all with out being disciplined. There are drastic changes made every other week. The bonus pay was cut in half at the whim of management , and you must be the life of the party if you wish to reamin an RA . Its not about productivty with this company its more about personality and willingness to handle a great deal of abuse.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to value your employees.

Pros

Benefits and compensation good. People were generally very nice, but guarded.

Cons

Company has a monopoly like attitude and culture. Moving to the next step will be difficult. Pace is slow by High Tech standards.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in technology in order to offer new services and value to customers.

Pros

Good, caring co-workers that share a common passion for the business and the success of their customers. It can only be a good thing that the most recent CEO has departed, he was both dishonest and incompetent.

Cons

At Arbitron, the IT tail definitely wags the dog. Forget the needs of the business. This wouldn't be such a problem if IT was competent but their lack of business knowledge or desire to learn is positively toxic.

Advice to Senior Management

Give serious thought to ridding the organization of the C suite hires the immediate past CEO made during his -1 year tenure.

Pros

Innovative technology and freedom to explore new ideas / applications.

Cons

Unsystematic growth, mis-planned strategies and a top down dictatorial work culture by transplanting a top employee from Intel who then brings in his team and brutally downsizes / smothers any hint of dissension in the ranks.

Frequent fire fighting mode due to unplanned or misplanned engineering schemes.

Advice to Senior Management

Every organization is unique and a good manager needs to balance bringing in new ideas / cultures/ consequently new problems or systematically remedying present problems through organizational consensus rather than top down dictates/mandates.

Petty minded top management will usually get upset for minor irritants and tend to show their clout by bullying people or by showing off their power by demoting or downsizing. This leads to a sense of fear and anxiety for those that need to hold on to their jobs and cause other talented people to just leave with their know how & training.

Pros

Great Benefits and Training. Very nice people who want to do a good job.

Cons

IT: They need to follow the SDLC like everyone else and quit letting the business make technology decisions. The only reason projects are completed is because of heroic efforts by a few people and they are rarely rewarded. The 'business' side runs the show and the software development/technology side is at their mercy. Now, they're outsourcing development/testing to India and doing so while also trying to implement CMMI processes and become CMMI certified.

Advice to Senior Management

Wake UP! CMMI isn't solving your problems because the process isn't 'really' being followed. By the time you see an audit, all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted, but don't kid yourself... the process wasn't followed. You still have chaos in your software development. You just look good on paper... AFTER the project is over.

Pros

Pay is good but schedule is not

Cons

Schedule is horrible and management needs major overhaul

Advice to Senior Management

Remote offices need just as much attention if not more