Carat Reviews

Pros

Great social atmosphere and a great way to meet connections at major broadcast netowrks. TOns of different learning experiences and ways to improve what you know

Cons

Carat is a huge organization with many clients which allows you to bounce around and try many different clients and experiences, but it is hard to move up fast.

Advice to Senior Management

Look to improve on working conditions and try to give employees more of an idea of how they are doing. Perhaps a review.

Pros

Just out of college, learned a lot about advertising and digital media. Very fast pace work environment, always feel like you are learning and that your work is making a difference. Really fun place to work, and fantastic benefits to the job if you are a buyer

Cons

Senior management has absolutely no idea what is going on or how to manage organizations or people. Instead of focusing on Carat's core competencies, they simply rely on winning new business - not moving clients forward. Little-to-no recognition of staff achievements and compensation is a joke.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the people who are actually doing the work and invest in them.

Pros

Close to trains
New Business team was able to aquire tons of new clients for 2010/2011 year
Great location

Cons

I felt like everyday I went to work was a day taken away from my life that I would never get back. The agency is very disorganized, lacks work ethic, are unprofessional, disrespectful, and unethical

From my first day at the agency i was "welcomed" with (un)opened arms. The atmosphere was always if you weren’t all about partying and gossiping ALL the time, then you were shunned from the team. If you didn’t do exactly as the cliques wanted, you would immediately be black listed throughout the agency. This was very upsetting as I thought I had put my high school dramatic days behind me and it showed how unprofessional folks were around the agency.

In regards to work it was the same thing… you wouldn’t get noticed for the good job you were doing for the client but for who can suck up to SR mgmt the best. Folks are great at sucking up and back stabbing because this is the only way they can pull the spotlight away from the poor job they were doing on their work. Something as simple as pulling a report or putting a plan together was like pulling teeth. The folks in supervisor and up positions DO NOT belong there. Assistant planners, planners, and 1 or 2 of the good supervisors would have to carry the entire team, in turn making the hours INSANE!

When you would try to go to your AMD, group director, etc, they would be highly unprofessional in their responses to you and come up with incredibly poor solutions to resolve matters on hand... or would go and tell their team favorites in turn creating more drama and chaos around the agency

All in all, I came to Carat because I heard it was a great place to work, but from the first day to the last it was a collaboration of high egos, laziness, lack of respect, lack of urgency, backstabbing, cliques, poor work ethic, and nothing but drama… STAY AWAY!

Advice to Senior Management

Open your EYES!! put aside your superiority complexes and come to work to do just that… work..

There is soo much potential available at the agency, but the wrong folks get promoted, and the wrong teams get recognition. You should be promoting people who do a good job, not who have been there the longest and doing mediocre work.

Pros

The agency has won a ton of new business in 2010 and into 2011 within several different areas, so there is variety in the types of accounts you can work on. Office is located near Grand Central so there are several subway lines nearby.

Cons

- Work hours are hideous and there is absolutely no work/life balance. Veterans of the agency tend to be cliquey and it's difficult to be liked/appreciated if you go against the grain. Sr. Leadership exodus late Q4 and early Q1 has caused teams to have to "step up" even more than they already do with no one to turn to for advice or guidance.

- No bonus' and no time off during the Christmas holiday - which was shocking especially that 2010 was the best year on record for the agency

Advice to Senior Management

- Hiring Sr Leadership should be a high priority.

- A mentorship program should be implemented to help lower level staff grow.

- Unprofessional, disrespectful and rude behavior should be addressed and not tolerated.

Pros

Carat is a good place to start your career, as they have a strong integrated media practice, and senior leadership will invest to get teams up to speed. Additionally, they are big on moving people laterally (not promoted) if they want to try something new.

Cons

Carat was a great place to get started, but the opportunities to advance beyond one or two levels were limited. The company was more inclined to hire externally than to promote from within.
Additionally, the company reeked of a need to upgrade their technology. The claims of having a digital practice were laughable as most of the equipment/technology was 10 years or more behind. The biggest frustration would come from the computer crashing several times a day or the printers out of service (had to print because limited people had laptops).
Senior leadership (directors, etc.) were ill quipped and not well trained. Most were brought in externally, and had to be coached by employees as to how to do their jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to invest in the people, and please invest in the technology. The digital space is highly competitive, with technology allowing other companies to do their core competency more efficiently. In order to stay at that level, you need to invest in resources for your staff, such as better computers, etc.
Additionally, please stop hiring senior management that needs to be trained by the current staff. Please create some kind of training program. What is currently happening is that people put themselves up for promotion, then there is a hire externally. The employee that applied for promotion had to then train their boss, which leads to disgruntlement with no option but turnover. Please create training programs internally.

Pros

Nice people, nice office setting, balance of employees as far as age, etc, friendly atmosphere and a helpful environment to learn/advance.

Cons

Not much opportunities for advancement within company or salary wise.

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Convenient location in Midtown East near Grand Central

Cons

- No raises for years - after the painstaking annual review (called Halogen) this spring, they came up with 2-3% 'increases' for most of us - that's after 2 years of salary freeze. Meanwhile, I happen to know for a fact that management cut themselves real, decent raises.
- Resources for research and analytics are extremely poor. Even those everyday office necessities such as printer ink are running low. Sometimes you cannot print out documents for days.
- Benefit packages are not up to par with other multinational agencies and have been in decline (decreasing days-off, increasing length of tenure for 401K match) in the last few years.
- Communication from management is often menacing and unprofessional.

Advice to Senior Management

This is an at-will employment. If you don't treat your employees with respect, they will leave.

Pros

Solid collection of talented people coupled with great growth potential as a full-service agency.

Cons

With the merge of Carat Fusion and Carat Media, ego fueled political infighting kept Carat from succeeding as a full-service agency. Nepotism and poor communication by corp management in NYC.

Advice to Senior Management

Should have maintained the other capabilities like tech, creative, PM and Account Mgt to compliment the media thought leadership at the end of 2008 versus just closing them out given the talent that was lost.

Pros

good life/work balance, benefits and people

Cons

little growth opportunities, reviews, promotions and raises are infrequent

Advice to Senior Management

invest more in developing employee's potential and career paths

Pros

Carat has really strong heritage in the media space, with fantastic research and insights. The work they do for the P&G account is progressive and savvy, and they're trying to operationalize that communications planning discipline across all accounts. The company is a top agency and invited to pitch the biggest accounts in review, and is willing to spend money to compete within those reviews.

Cons

The agency has lost their advantage in digital, due to a misguided merger and high turnover among senior management. Less money on the television side means less leverage to negotiate, which repeatedly comes back in pitch reviews. High turnover with accounts has created the same with staff, and an inability to retain the talent that matters.

Advice to Senior Management

Employees at all levels have become withdrawn due to a lack of open communication. Mid-level management is looking to senior management for confidence and stability, but those in senior management don't feel that they're within the inner circle either.