Internet Brands Reviews

Pros

Refined development process, a lot of individual freedom with accountability at the same time. Exposure to a solid technology platform, excellent technological resources, quality leadership, smart business partners (as in - they know what the hell they're talking about and they don't get in the way of quality development), a place where I can learn and grow

Cons

Workload is pretty heavy - keep growing and adding more sites to the mix so there's a lot for everyone to do, but I guess that means there's job stability.

Advice to Senior Management

Would be cool if there were more internal training resources, or we had more connections to the tech meetups in the area.

Pros

Innovation happens here, every day. Every door (those few who have doors) is open, and feedback from everyone is welcome. We're constantly looking for ways to leverage and improve our sites, and the intensity to move things forward is real, palpable, and shared by (well maybe not the junior sales reps - but nearly) the entire company.

Cons

The rate of change can upset people; nothing is constant. Hard to say, but some people are not cut out to work at an Internet company, where a single day is like a week or month's worth of activity in other industries.

Advice to Senior Management

Broadening the base perks would be nice - I enjoy the people and the technical challenges here which is why I stay - but it's hard not to notice the gym memberships and free snacks (for example) at some of our competitors.

Pros

Startup kind of atmosphere. Relaxed but at the same time fast paced and great learning opportunity.

Cons

Salary is not accroding to the market rates.

Advice to Senior Management

Lets get more aggressive and keep employees happy by increasing motivation.

Pros

Worked there back in the Carsdirect days. Lots of smart and competent folks in the IT departments, some of the best UI designers I've ever met. Cordial atmosphere once you're accepted in as a competent IT resource.

Cons

Things often done on a shoestring, long hours, difficult architecture to integrate with and within.

Advice to Senior Management

Not sure at this point, but I know that the turnover was killer back in the day - make sure to fix that if it's still the case.

Pros

Gain lots of new skills.
Secure Job - Little "Firing" going on - see why in "Cons"
Great place to build your resume.
Work in a professional environment.
Friendly coworkers.
Nice View

Cons

As others have mentioned, IB's compensation package is almost slave wage. I've seen many people with Masters Degree earning $10 to $12 an hr, It's really sickening when the CEO of the company mentions that selling the company to the new owners has added him another "0" to his bank account while his employees can barely pay enough for food in the office vending machines.

Management will smile and be nice to you, but it's just a facade to the underlying issue - which is a VERY VERY HIGH TURNOVER RATE! Their careers page visualizes it.

The employees (earning $12hr) that do stay here for more than a year have no confidence in themselves and want a "Secure" job. Little firings/layoffs going on because they can't find enough individuals willing to work for that type of wage- in industry standard, it's less than a fraction of what you can make elsewhere.

Build your Resume here and leverage it to move onto new opportunities. This is a JOB not a Career.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees like human beings. Compensate them with a living wage. Offering competitive compensation packages will keep talent. Stop abusing your Human Resources to find you people willing to work for low wage.

Pros

-Great people, casual environment
-Competent management
-The company is focused on acquiring websites with great content
-Flexible hours = good work/life balance
-Employees are given a lot of autonomy

Cons

-The pay is lower than comparable positions at other companies
-If you're a person who needs to be told exactly what to do, this is probably not the company for you because you're given a lot of autonomy. If you don't like to be micromanaged, and enjoy having some freedom at work, you'll be happy here.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay needs to be at least industry standards and there should be more emphasis put on growth and advancement opportunities if you want to have better employee retention

Pros

It was a pretty decent work environment. I got along with my supervisors and they were generally happy as long as I got work done. I had to time to study things that were of interest to me.

Cons

The pay is really low for this industry and you are given very little direction so getting work done can isn't as efficient as it could be. I also worked on sites that were rather old and had little documentation.

Advice to Senior Management

Definitely more competitive pay would be advisable and and upgrading rather than patching sites would be nice.

Pros

You may be given an opportunity for professional growth as long as you're willing to accept the fact that compensation won't follow.

Cons

If you want to work somewhere with fair pay, good communication, a basic amount of respect and intelligent management, Internet Brands is not for you. You won't get anywhere within a mile of market rate for your position and the way the business is run is extremely immoral.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay people fairly and you will see higher production and stronger retention.

Pros

Nice view from the office.

Casual dress code.

Free tea and coffee.

Cons

You will get paid a fraction of what you can earn in other companies. If you are interviewing at two companies and get an offer from both, I can guarantee that Internet Brands offer will be the lower of the two. Considerably lower!

IB has a revolving door for employees. People start, stay for a few months and leave when they see the company’s true colors. Management make no effort to retain employees. Their strategy is to use their large recruiting department to quickly replace you once you leave.

IB will do everything it can to scam you out of your health benefits. I would estimate that 50% of the company isn’t offered any kind health insurance. They even prevent some employees from parking in their parking lot (depending on the number of hours they work).

If you are lucky enough to be selected for a promotion congratulations! You now have extra job responsibilities but no extra pay. Management constantly low ball employees, particularly internal transfers. If you bargain hard enough you might be able to get them to agree to a 90 day review, after which time you will have to chase down management to conduct the review. They would much rather ignore it and hope you forget.

CEO boasts about how much money he has while underpaying his employees. He commissioned an "art" piece for the lobby that cost $10,000 while many of his employees are earning $10-$12 per hour. Very disrespectful on his part.

Moral within the company is low. There is a constant undertone of unhappiness around the office, which is a response to managements "I don’t really care" attitude to the staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop abusing your workers. The very least you can do is pay the industry standard.

Pros

I suppose it's a good place to start in online media, that's about it. If you've got no experience you'll learn some things and make yourself more appealing to a better company, but get out in a year max.

Cons

They are cheap and the level of dissatisfaction among the employees because of it is palpable as soon as you walk into the building. Now, I understand that salary is a huge expense, and it should be tightly controlled, but this place is just crazy. I'm sorry, but if you intend on paying people 60% of market, the only ones that will stay are the ones that are too incompetent to get a job elsewhere.

The end result? A company run by a staff of mediocre talent. The result of that? Absolutely terrible products, zero innovation, constant mistakes/fumbles and no chance at ever making any kind of brand name in the space despite the company name.

Advice to Senior Management

For the love of God, this company has so much potential. Please wake up and realize that you could do twice as much with half the staff if they were all well paid rockstars.