Monster Cable Reviews

Pros

Great people. Always a good energy level at Monster, and a real "can do" attitude exemplified by everyone who is a monster.

Cons

Expectations are sometimes unrealistic and it is difficult working with top-level management, because of the ingrained culture of never accept no as an answer.

Advice to Senior Management

Better balance between work and life. More transparency is needed from the top down, and more praise should be doled out.

Pros

Working at Monster gives you many opportunities to advance in your career. You will be exposed to working with different functions of the company within a very short amount of time. Overall, this will be a good place for you if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. Depending on your position, you will most likely be "wearing multiple hats" to get things done.

Cons

Nothing is easy at Monster. Simple tasks can be complicated due to the small business organizational structure and inability to change. Once you join Monster, you will become "a Monster"... The processes to get things done may not be the most efficient way, but is often chosen due to the lack planning. "short before long" - a Monster motto that should really be the other way around.

Advice to Senior Management

"Because things have always been done that way" is not enough to justify business actions. It is a dangerous thing to be blinded by only what's in front of you, longterm sustainable growth is far more important than short term gains.

Pros

Good if you're fresh out of college, need some experience, don't mind the meager salaries,no raises, and only plan to stick around for a few years. Also, if you're heavily into politics and you're one of those people who enjoys hearing yourself talk while not really producing anyhting, and you do a good job of wooing the bigwigs, you can hang out at Monster for many years and not do much.

Cons

All politics, you can be there for many years without so much as a cost of living raise if you don't kiss the right butt. Morale sucks when you see the 'elite group' who don't do anything and get paid the big bucks while you work your ass off with no recognition. Again, if you're not a politician, you will NOT go far. Monster likes to hire all the industry dinosaurs from retailers who have been closing down through the years. You'll see some people who are so old school, they don't know what email is. Some of these people can barely even spell. Those are the ones who get the big bucks and hang out for many, many years. It's a big morale buster watching another friend leave every week. Terrible managers who will belittle you and are not fit to be leaders.

Advice to Senior Management

Monster needs to remember the 'little people', the ones that keep the company going. Also Monster needs to get REAL leaders and managers in place. The crurrent lineup is a joke, who lead by fear, and haven't earned their respect. A company who in a DOWN economy is losing one employee per week because they are choosing to leave really needs to take a deep look at what's wrong instead of hiding under all the BS. If they want to fix the company, the owner should call up every single employee that leaves personally to hear the truth from the horse's mouth. They also need a REAL HR department. Going to HR with any complaints at Monster is essentially, career suicide.

Pros

Lots of "toys" (resources) to work with (computers, electronics, etc).
Benefits were heavily subsidized (medi,dental) - may have changed when COO (conscience of the company, in my opinion) left.
Always events going on - trade shows, concerts.

Cons

The higher you climb in the company, the more your personal life/time is disregarded.
Management structure is flat.
Every day is like "Project Runway" - you're "in", until one day, you're "out" (especially in Marketing Management).

Advice to Senior Management

All hail, Noel Lee!

Pros

Free swag. Most of the employees are hardworking and nice.

Cons

No professional development, lack of leadership from management, salaried employees work evenings, & weekends & even holidays. Management is incompetent. Too many unproductive meetings.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop hiding out in meetings all the time and get some real expertise.

Pros

The knowledge you can gain about electronics is vast. There are many opportunities to learn "audiophile" skills if you spend free time in the engineering department. There are also good opportunities to learn about online marketing from the wed media professional on staff.

Cons

The company does not recognize good work nor does it give young employees the freedom or responsibility to prove themselves. They do not utilize their assets to their fullest potential. At least not in all departments. An in-house marketing department at a company that does very little marketing or "silent" marketing should try more innovative tactics and use its intelligent employees, not be condescending toward them.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more engaged with the lower level staff members. Training the talented young employees and paying them more will yield higher dividends in the future.

Pros

Great People to work with

Cons

No direction from the leaders of the company

Advice to Senior Management

Need new leadership

Pros

If you are a go-getter who wants to learn about the audio/video business, this is your place! You will learn about marketing from one of the legends. Because people have so much to do, if you think of a good idea or project, people are more than happy to let you be the one to do it. If you want you can excel and climb the ladder of responsibility.

It's also a lot of fun. There is camaraderie, and people like to play together. For all the hard work it becomes a vibrant family atmosphere. And it seems to attract good hearted people who care, who are willing to work together to create synergy and be better by working together. Most people are more than willing to help each other.

If you are willing and open to seeing things from others viewpoint, you can learn fast from the brilliance of the people there.

Cons

If you take a job at Monster, it will be your life. The management knows no boundaries. You will not only work day, night and weekends, if you are in a position of working with the top management, you will get calls in the middle of the night. You will get calls on weekends. You'll even get called in on Thanksgiving (don't worry they'll feed you turkey too). Monster becomes your life if you are not careful.

Also, you need to be careful. If you lose the respect of top management, or you misinterpret information and the result is not what they asked for, you will be derided and insulted.

Advice to Senior Management

It is not only up to the employees to learn how to work with management, it is important for management to learn how to work with the employees.

Sticking to a plan for even a few months and seeing it through and holding themselves accountable to their vision, is important for momentum toward a goal.

Also, making sure there is coordination and that there are milestones to make each department accountable --and sticking to that plan or discussing and communicating any adjustments would help the company move forward with strength.

Pros

My managers treated me with great fairness. The overall culture and vibe in the office is upbeat and robust.

Cons

Sometimes communication from sales and senior management was non-existent.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more proactive in communicating to the field especially to sales support.

Pros

Ability to implement rapid change
Monster Culture fosters proactive empowerement
A leader in the accesory market segment
Fast new product rollout process

Cons

It takes a while to learn the culture, but once you do you can be very effective in the company
Our new product introduction process is not documented, and depends too much on a few knowledgeable Monsters

Advice to Senior Management

More communication
Our CEO Noel Lee likes to communicate to all levels of the company, nevertheless the communication needs to be more two-way so he can hear more feedback from the troops