Critical Mass Reviews

Pros

Very encouraging place to work, great for junior and senior staff alike. Innovation is part of the life's blood here and management will back you if you're doing something to make the work better. Good, long-term relationships with many clients.

Cons

Weak project and account management. Get second-billing to home office in Calgary (sometimes deserved, especially in regards to creative output; often not deserved though - envy, jealousy, etc).

Advice to Senior Management

Be willing to turn down production work or resign business with terrible clients. This is the only way to earn the respect our output would otherwise deserve.

Pros

the staff at CM is great! Everyone is smart, funny and enjoys eachothers company. They are there to back you up when you need it and drink with you when you need it. Great People. Great Parties. Great Work.

Cons

The hours can be long and the pressure can be a lot to handle. There can be months where you work for 12 - 16 hour days and then a short break where you are down to 40 hours per week. It is hard work, stressful work and challenging work, but that does not mean it is entirely negative.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to the lower levels. There is a management structure in place that may not recognize the hard workers as often as they should.

Pros

People are great to work with.

Cons

Salaries are slightly lower than other companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a closer look at compensation for employees and growth opportunities.

Pros

- High profile clients and projects
- If you last longer then 2 years you will have proven that you can survive in the most extreme toxic environments.

Cons

- Management cultishly insular.
- Long, unpaid overtime leads to eventual burnout
- High turnover rate, HR was on a permanent hiring blitz to maintain enough staff to complete projects
- Professional development largely involves coming to sobering realizations about where you will finally draw the line

Pros

- decent pay
- advancement opportunities (promotions within)
- social aspect, many events and gatherings
- multiple forms of individual recognition
- casual atmosphere
- execs are open with employees about what's going on
- individual funds offered towards career growth (conventions, classes, etc)
- career development programs
- decently updated equipment, software
- multiple offices worldwide
- decent mix of big name clients

Cons

- size - office is a bit small for amount of employees, although it's expanding soon to accomodate
- lack of process
- chicago office seems to be growing, but not gaining the more fun/interesting clients that some of the other offices seem to get

Advice to Senior Management

- spread the more desirable clients across all offices
- make sure people understand the career development process
- offer more support to employees during a pitch

Pros

Safe. I can take a higher level position, and years later go to a lower level position, and not be penalized.

Cons

The general public seems to hate us.

Advice to Senior Management

Needs better PR. Hire someone to repair image.

Pros

- Great people
- Office in downtown, with nice view
- Lots of social events
- Good clients for resume
- Typical American company

Cons

-Office is open space, sometimes too noisy
-Work is like a consulting for clients, no clients - no work
-Very bad management planning for projects and recourses (people), overtimes for employees
-Not much challenge from technical point of view, all the projects typical and rather simple sites to display/save to DB something
-Work with offshore services in Costa Rica
-Lots of games around projects with Canadian guys (they have offices there), sometimes it's annoying, aka family with top management as parents, and teams as siblings hating each other.

Advice to Senior Management

-Improve planning for projects
-Try not to share work among different offices
-Provide employees with performance review on a regular basis

Pros

Very good salary, competitive health benefits and vacation time. Critical Mass has solid clients with recognizable company names that can really enhance a resume. The creative work and programs that the company produces is terrific.

Cons

The company structure was pretty shallow, which at a certain point you feel like there is no upward movement you can make in your career. Director-level positions and higher have an excellent thing going and they are not going to vacate those positions. I felt that the office had their favorite employees who receive all of the credit for good work done, regardless of who actually did the work.

Advice to Senior Management

I liked the company top leadership - solid, experienced, capable. Working with all of the staff in the Calgary HQ was a pleasure - really good and nice people.

Pros

great pay, flexible work schedule

Cons

no direction/leadership, lots of cliques

Advice to Senior Management

better recruiting

Pros

amazing culture, great work, fun office, great heritage

Cons

pay, nepotism, structure, leads, pay

Advice to Senior Management

too focused on the bottom line, a ot of great people left, and continue to leave, innovation only goes so far before you have to fulfill retainer work.