CityGrid Media Reviews

Current Employee – been working at CityGrid Media

Pros – Great energy and leadership from the executive level.

Cons – The support roles get lost in the focus on technology therefore, advancement has a glass sealing.

Current Employee – been working at CityGrid Media

Pros – Benefits
Salary
Flexibility to work from home and in the field
Nice downtown office
VP's are really cool people

Cons – There isn't a clear direction on what needs to be done.
Things are constantly changing and unclear
Training was elementary and we didn't learn much about the product
Sales goals are alittle overwhelming and; There was never a good market analysis done on chicago before coming into this market.
No method to the madness which can be frustrating; and many of the staff members speak to you as if you have been with the company for years and know exactly whats going on.
If you dont pass the initial ramp up process ...your done in 90 days!!

Advice to Senior Management – biggest advice is to create different motivating factors, Team events, market presentations, quarterly goals. I just think there needs to be more structure from top to bottom. A better plan of execution when explaining overall goals and expectations.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at CityGrid Media

Pros – Decent pay and benefits. I met some really great people.

Cons – I have worked in my industry for close to 7 years and by far this has been the worse experience I've had at any company Ive worked at. Don't expect any on-boarding. Arrogant and out of touch leadership, I feel bad for the employees that I constantly hear feeling trapped working here just to be able to earn a living. I've actually had my manager speak out against me with a room full of my colleagues. If you want to feel ostracized and humiliated, this might be the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management – The company is only as good as its foundation. Your foundation are your employees. Listen to them and make sure your managers have people skills and the right leadership skills for the job.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at CityGrid Media

Pros – Good benefits, low pressure, good work life balance

Cons – Too much favoritism when it comes to promotions. The same people are promoted over and over again.
Salaries are WAY below industry average.
Very little professional growth, if you don't work for the right "team".

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at CityGrid Media

Pros – We work in an Agile environment where everyone contributes and has a meaningful voice on the team. I love the Friday, "Coffee Talk" with CEO, Jay Herratti's 30 minute sessions. Through these sessions, I've learned so much about other departments in the company by hearing a cross section of cross-functional team members talk about what they're working on. Enjoy working on tough, interesting projects and new challenges and being recognized personally and with my teammates for our contributions.

Cons – Since the company is such an open work environment and floor plan, its sometimes difficult to find open huddle rooms where several of us can meet and work out problems on white board space since there aren't too many meeting rooms. The days go quickly so I often wish more more time.

Advice to Senior Management – No new advice to give here since when I've approached my leader and executives with ideas and thoughts, they have given me guidance and offered feedback and implemented change when it was warrented.
I don't understand the negative Glassdoor reviews as they seem false and either written by disgruntled former employees who may have been let go due to not being able to perform to the performance standards or simply falsely written by someone as a way to try to get CityGrid to advertise into thinking that the false reviews will be removed?

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at CityGrid Media

Pros – Everyone's smart. And nice. Beautiful building with insane views. Very competitive local search platform. Managers who support and listen. I was really please with how READY everyone was for me from day 1, and how I've consistently had all the resources I need to be successful, while still maintaining a comfortable autonomy.

Cons – I'm happy to report that so far no downsides! The location can be a little tricky to access, but that of course depends on where you're coming from.

Advice to Senior Management – Remain mindful of the big-picture / career path for each member of your team. Make sure channels of communication are clear and open, especially inter-departmentally.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at CityGrid Media

Pros – good location, nice building, Friday bagels and fruits.you get nice laptop. nice cubical. nice annual parties and company parties. There are some new stuff to work on but it's limited to some groups but not all groups.

Cons – There are some many waste people. Too many managers and product managers. Product managers are completely waste. They don't know anything and try to pressure you unnecessarily to make their job safe. Some product managers get the technical info from engineers and take the credit.

Your ideas will not be considered. No promotions to senior long time employees. No bonus.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to employees and reduce product managers and managers. Respect and promote long time employers instead of hiring new managers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at CityGrid Media

Pros – There's a TV upstairs. Bagels on Fridays. There's a company picnic once a year. You get a laptop. Fancy building.

Cons – Your parking lot is 1/3 mile away, so get used to walking to work. The management preaches six "values" (things like transparency, speed and quality), none of which are practiced and none of which place any focus on you, the employee (your happiness, your growth, your career). Pay is good, but only because they are desperate to attract "talent". Everyone there also used to work at yahoo, and you know how well that turned out. If you didn't previously work at yahoo, you will not advance your career here. Your ideas are rarely considered. If you did work at yahoo, you will probably become senior director of something. However, the company is facing an uphill battle in an industry that, frankly, is already being won by the likes of google, foursquare and yelp. Knowing this, the company doesn't really seem to know what it's doing.

Advice to Senior Management – Value your (good) employees. Listen to them and their ideas and do not place so much emphasis on "the process". They don't need pep talks and inspiring speeches - they need supportive management, not controlling management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at CityGrid Media

Pros – There were a few good folks to work with there.

Cons – I want to say a couple things up front in the spirit of full disclosure and frankness:

1. I HATE this place - it was far and away and in *every* way the most insulting, demoralizing work experience I've ever had.

2. That said, do your due diligence - it's possible that things can change, or that there are pockets within the company that somehow provide a decent work environment. Although I will say that is hard to imagine.

Here's the list:

1. Chaotic work environment/Non-existent or incompetent/arrogant/uninterested direct management.

Explanation: For my first 4 months on the job I had NO direct manager. In month 5 they "temporarily" made a VP the team manager. This person quickly decided that with his state-of-the-art mastery of 90s web technology he should actually function as the team tech lead instead. Far from actually managing us his singular interest was in defending his throne as tech-god and czar. He made this abundantly clear by utterly displacing the real team lead (who was a very competent and up-to-date technologist) forcing the entire (JAVA) team to write Perl scripts (since that was the only thing he (almost) knew how to do) and often screaming (I'm not kidding) YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND to any team member who debated him on anything, especially his crappy, misplaced Perl code.

Annual reviews came up about 5 months into my tenure. We'd had to fill out a questionnaire in preparation for the interview - questions you'd expect like how you felt about how things were going at work, what would you change, what were your personal goals, etc. In the interview, instead of engaging me with any questions of that sort, he instead scanned my (considered) responses for a full 3 seconds and blurts out "Well all this says is that you're new. You're new." He then, unlike the printed questionnaire, fails to ask me even a single question and instead proceeds to talk about things from his point of view for 5-10 minutes. The truth is this is exactly how I expected the "review" to go and I already was headed full speed for the door so I didn't bother taking the initiative to unilaterally communicated anything that any normal manager would have asked me in a review.

2. Arrogant and out of touch leadership.

3. Favoritism, promotion of incompetent personnel while the talented get passed over for raises and promotions.

4. Uncanny numbers of utterly incompetent personnel who constantly pressure the competent to form a human bridge that spans the endless gulf between their duties and their ernormously limited capabilities.

5. Merciless Lowballers.

6. No one in management taking action on ANY of these fundamental problems.

I realize I might come off as someone who is disgruntled but doesn't really have the right to be etc etc. We all know the kind. I assure you I am not. I have worked in the industry for 12 years and have many fond memories of many good years - at other companies.

Final note/smoking gun - within a month after my leaving CityGrid had lost SO MANY tech employees to a mass exodus/stampede for the exits that they not only stopped low-balling on job offers but they offered many who were still there huge retention bonuses AND huge signing bonuses for referrals. Learning of this the rest of us just collectively shook our heads and muttered "wow..."

Advice to Senior Management – You have a lucrative market cornered and *should* make a killing. The irony though is that the arrogance you subject your employees to is SO intense that it is blinding you to the obvious realities of your company and your business - and as a result might just sink you too. Hopefully you won't have to pay such a high price just to learn a lesson in decency and equality. I'm not sure where you think you are on the globe or what century your calendar reads, but this is the USA, century 21.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at CityGrid Media

Pros – Nice location, great office. Decent benefits. There are some great people that worked there. Made a lot of great friends in the process.

Cons – No room for advancement. Management will try to deny your attempts to find other opportunities within the company. Unfair treatment of employees. I got treated differently (micromanaged) than my coworkers. Felt so trapped, there was no one to go to. HR didn't care, just seems no one cares. Glad I am moving on.

Advice to Senior Management – Reassignment. I really have no other words to say. I tried and tried but it didn't work. Like I said, I am glad I'm moving on.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend