Fleishman-Hillard Reviews in Washington, DC Area

I have been working at Fleishman-Hillard as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Wonderful people to work with. The CEO Dave Senay is a wonderful man. The business is on a great track and has positioned itself to do well in the future.

Cons – I found the culture to be too corporate for me.

Advice to Senior Management – You're doing great!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Fleishman-Hillard full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good international footprint, some good big anchor brands, less competitive internally and more collaborative (but this can depend on which office you work in).

Cons – Knowledge sharing is haphazard, some senior consultants are only there because they have worked in the company for 20 years, interoffice politics, poor HR/career development

Advice to Senior Management – Improve OD and career development programs, improve inter-office coordination and collaboration

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Fleishman-Hillard full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – A brilliant staff - 95% of whom are the best and the brightest in communications but are not allowed by management to know that, think that, feel that, or ever believe it.

Cons – FH-DC. Frozen in time. A relic of a bygone era.
A PR principality -- a Bermuda Triangle Kingdom - ruled and carefully controlled by a core group of lifers who will do it whatever it takes to ensure new blood, fresh thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit never get in the way of their entitled way of life and a Downtown Abbey approach to management.

Advice to Senior Management – Get out of the Bermuda Triangle -- the suburbs and your safe little offices -- and interact with rough and tumble world of Washington, DC. You are strategically located in the nation's capital for a reason. The White House is actually 4 blocks away. Really..it is. Embrace the most powerful city in the world that surrounds you. Build business because of it. Once you rediscover what your are no longer in Kansas but in Washington, DC, you'll also realize it's no longer 1998 -- the year when you last ventured beyond L Street with a new idea or sense of curiosity. Heh...did you hear the nation has an African American president now? It may be a good time to dust off that "how do we pretend to be diverse overnight" memo.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Fleishman-Hillard full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – They definitely hire some amazing people - fun, smart, funny - and the kind of people you want to work 60 hours a week with. The majority of my adult friends are from FH, and some of my most interesting and fun career moments were at FH. The firm does also get some interesting and challenging clients that offer some exceptional work experiences.

Cons – First, there is little to no actual management training of senior staff - the firm's staffing model means they keep promoting smart people who have no business or skill managing the people below them. Second, since the firm is headquartered in a low cost-of-living market, salaries are some of lowest in the industry, regardless of what market you are in, making many, many staff feel underappreciated and consistently thinking about their next move.

Advice to Senior Management – Reward loyalty to the firm with actual bonuses and legitimate pay raises. Don't make people group leaders simply because they are smart and that's the only path to making them partner. Most employees are hard-pressed to name a single group leader they believe would nurture their careers or advocate for them for promotions or professional growth.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – You gain experience at a large public relations firm with some of the most amazing people in the profession. Co-workers are very supportive and helpful. Truly an amazing place to be an intern!

Cons – Working at a large firm you sometimes feel like you get lost among all of the other people. Interns have a lot of great opportunities here, but of course there is a lot of administrative work to be done too.

Advice to Senior Management – Sometimes it seems that the management at Fleishman is scared of ambition and ambitious people. Obviously this is understandable because of the harm that could come from being different, but it's also important to remember that there can't be great rewards without a little risk.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – One of the FH core tenets is respect for the individual. That rings true to me every day I work here because with dedication and hard work (and sure some natural talent never hurts), a person can drive one's own career path at FH so that the job you have is what you have made for yourself. How can you not love that? Of course, teamwork is everything, but our teams typically consist of many different types of people, with different strengths and interests, who have each been encouraged to develop a personal career path within FH.
Additionally, the people are all at the top of their games, and are nice as well. In our group, we strive to lead, to be thought-leaders for our sector and to get the accounts associated with top-tier agencies. That drive to succeed is truly amazing, not on its own, but when it is reinforced again and again by Senior Partners on down to SAE's. FH'ers don't typically "settle." That's a great thing because even when you may not be helping with the biggest pitch of the week, or a part of finishing up a huge, global project, you're still working for top-shelf clients doing interesting work, and an environment has been created wherein you can be happy for those who are taking the spotlight at any given time. There is a culture at FHDC, that celebrates every participant, and that's a rare thing to come by.

Cons – I've never worked for such a large agency before and the size took some getting used to, but I've acclimated. In the beginning, I may ave been daunted by the fact that we were bringing in experts from FHUK or Tokyo for something, but there's such value in that global network it outweighs any concerns I had RE practicality or logistics for an individual project.

Advice to Senior Management – In DC, since there is a large Digital / Creative group and the mantra at FH has been about integration, it might make sense to have a job shadow day, within FHDC. So that the creatives can better know the smaller details of the account side of things, and vice versa.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – The culture - it's phenomenal. From the minute you begin interviewing at FH, you start hearing about our philosophy. At so many other places, those tenets of culture are meaningless. At FH, they're really lived every day, and this committment to the culture makes a big difference. I've never worked at a place that's so focused on quality and producing top-notch work for clients, each and every time. The creativity and teamwork that my colleagues bring to every project never cease to impress me. Also, our digital practice is incredible, and really unrivaled in the industry. It's such a treat to get to work with them.

Cons – It's a large company, so it can take awhile to learn the lay of the land - both within the office and within the network.

Advice to Senior Management – You've built an extremely talented staff. Please do whatever you can to retain them, even in these tough times.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – The FH culture is the best in the industry. The company is full of smart people who enjoy working together. Management is supportive, not abusive, as it is in other agencies. I've traveled to a lot of other offices and I've always been welcomed by warm hospitable people who have the same goals and motivations as I do -- to do the best job possible for our clients and ourselves. I've never worked in a place that cared so much about their employees. There's very little internal politics. In general, FH is just a great place to build a career.

Cons – The downside of the culture of being nice, is that sometimes situations are allowed to linger longer than others may think they should. There can be a feeling that people are allowed to get away with under-performing. Public relations is a demanding career in general. Because it's all client-focused, you're basically on-call all the time. FH has tended to be conservative in its approach but that isn't as true anymore.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay everyone as much as possible.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – The people at Fleishman-Hillard are wonderful to work with - pleasant, intelligent, talented, and fun. It's a very flat organization and senior management is very unpretentious and accessible. Excellent client base, company seems strongly respected within its industry.

Fleishman's client base is a plus. The DC office has a number of federal government clients that will insulate the company from the business cycle to an extent, but it also has major corporate accounts. Client-focused professionals, especially in more senior roles, often get opportunities to travel to client offices, sometimes internationally.

The DC office has a great location, especially for young people who can live in urban neighborhoods and walk or bike to work.

Cons – PR is a professional service industry, so employees are sometimes at the mercy of client demands. Teams occasionally had to work unpredictable hours. That seems standard for the industry, though.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work and good luck during the downturn!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Fleishman-Hillard

Pros – FH's Best in class reputation; diverse client base; staff with subject matter expertise help make FH not only the employer of choice in its industry, but attracts exciting and meaningful client work.

Cons – Office management is increasingly disconnected from staff. Most troubling is the widely acknowledged limited opportunities for any but junior staff. Once a certain level is reached, with a top-heavy management structure deeply entrenched--creating an artificial advancement ceiling--FH begins to lose brainpower and expertise. Chronic staffing inadequacies result in unsustainable workloads at various levels--that, with inadequate financial/incentive compensation means loss of key staff at all levels (a long-time executive incentive program was discontinued.)

Advice to Senior Management – Provide incentives to mid-level and junior executive level employees--salary is no longer enough, esp. if salaries are not competitive. Overhauling the annual review process is helping, but it needs to be more transparent. Provide opportunities to more senior employees who have valuable expertise/experience. Strengthen the firms mid-level employees--this should be the core of the company--less reliance on serving clients with junior staff.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend