PlattForm Advertising Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

To pay the bills its better than no job

Cons

Made to feel unneeded, expendable high stress always wondering if I will have a job the next week to provide for my family. Favoratism is rampent. Judged on performance of ability to convert leads without concideration of the source or quality of the calling data. these things obviously contribute to the high turn over rate. The majority of the turn over is caused by people feeling the stress from not meeting the companies extreme expectations. Employees move on to other jobs or simply quit. Some even take jobs with less pay in order to have more job security. Im highly qualified and have an abundance of experience in the field but the favoratism, I have little hope of advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay less attention to promoting people that you are friends with ,review employees leads more extensively when their numbers are sky high, promote people who have a proven track record. Employees are loud, boisterous and perverse and that affects my leads when prospects here those things, and I am supposed to be representing colleges, that makes me and the company appear unprofessional. Take into concideration that the way these leads are obtained are by unemployment web sites and job search sites. These people are stressed beyond belief, when they first get a call from career advisor, their hopes are up for a job opportunity only to be slammed back down and to be offered a way to have to spend money they dont have when they have kids, a behind mortgage a debt collectors calling. They want a job and they get mad for their time being wasted. Find new ways to get leads its a waste of time and money. Many people feel like they are being scammed when they HAVE to fill out the form for career advisor in order to recieve state assistance and they are literally waiting for the chance to chew out a CA.

Pros

Fairly good pay for the type of work performed.

Cons

Unlike the job description states, you will not be making warm contacts with prospective students as stated in their ads. The contacts are cold calls. They acquire information from prospective students from job sites such as Monster.com and Job.com. Most of the contacts are only interested in jobs and they become hostile when they find out these websites they've submitted applications on have given away their information.

Advice to Senior Management

Business ethics is not an outdated concept. Establish an honest rapport with potential hires, hired employees and prospective students who you very well know weren't looking to attend school.

Pros

The one good thing about PlattForm was the culture. It is laid back with a casual dress code, and younger people. You also get a very generous benefit package.

Cons

When you step into the Client Services department, it is an instant feeling of stress and people are just plain cranky. The people are very young and unprofessional. Help is not offered as people push responsibilities on others and not themselves (as with every department) The management is horrible - they have no care to help employees with issues. My "Supervisor" on my account never knew what was going on and would just pass on their issues to other people on the team. That was my first red flag I noticed within the first month of working here!! I was let go for "not being a good fit for the company". I had no idea what that meant, they didn't explain it, didn't explain my benefits, vacation time, NOTHING when I left. It's constant stress and they expect you to work overtime every week (without additional compensation). As if the lower-than-entry-level-salary wasn't low enough. Please save your time and don't consider this company!!

Pros

The best reason to work at PlattForm is the atmosphere and work environment. Casual dress, a game room with billiards, ping pong, foosball, and more. The people who work there are amazing. Lots of energy, as they typically hire young 20-somethings right out of college on the cheap. The benefits package is pretty good for an individual. If you have kids, plan on buying their insurance elsewhere (not cheap). The paid time off is fantastic. Great PTO schedule, extra time off during the holidays, "flex fridays" during the summer (every other Friday is a half day) and their Wellness Incentive Program allows you the opportunity to potentially earn an entire additional week off.

Cons

I can only speak to specifically the Client Services team. No other team works harder than the CS team, by far. The individuals really do care about doing a good job. The problem is that this team is extremely underpaid compared to industry norms and the amount of work they put in. The stress level is extremely high, and the work flow often borderlines on chaotic. Yes, the benefits of working at PF help (casual dress, paid time off, etc), but the quality of life most weeks is hindered by an extremely high stress level. Appreciation and encouragement from management is almost non existent. Even if you are extremely good at your job, it's not enough. You have to "drink the koolaid" and "play the game" if you want to advance and succeed. They have some tremendously talented individuals come through that department, and they have inexplicably let some go without any reason, cause or notice (so, yes, job security is certainly a concern), and many others have quit as they found other jobs with companies that valued them more (in terms of monetary compensation). The management team within the CS department is terrible. They are great Account Supervisors and Account Managers, but they are incredibly bad at managing people. Communication and feedback is incredibly poor, everything is very "cloak and dagger" and you simply never really know where things are heading in terms of your career advancement. If you are willing to play the political game then you may get promoted once or twice, but even then you'll still be making less than you would somewhere else. The CS team doesn't know what a 40 hour work week is. Plan on getting there early every day and staying late many days, as well as working from home frequently (they pay salary, so no overtime pay). I would recommend PlattForm to anyone and everyone, but if you value quality of life, knowing where your career is heading, and knowing your management has your back, then stay away from the Client Services team.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote people to management who are more than good Account Executives. Also, higher ups (like the CMO) should not make so many assumptions based on feedback from the severely under qualified Account Supervisors (there are a couple exceptions). Be far more open and up front with your employees in terms of where they are at in their career development. Be more honest with the team, and far less secretive. Pay your team more. Don't say you only expect them to work 8:30am to 5pm and then question them when they actually work those hours. Also, in terms of the question below about how is Dave Admire doing . . . Dave is amazing. I respect him more than anyone else. The only problem he has is a blind trust in his department managers.

Pros

PlattForm is a very fun place to be. The crowd is mostly 20 somethings with a decent number of 30 somethings and a spattering of older age groups. They are good to you for the most part and very understanding of family needs/emergencies.

The place is friendly and relaxed. You can dress in t-shirt and shorts in the summer. Its a very casual environment. The benefits, especially health and dental are pretty awesome, better than most places.

Cons

PlattForm is a company that mostly looks to hire young, inexperienced people that are fresh out of college because they can hire a lot more people for less money. This isn't entirely bad because it helps the inexperienced get the experience they need to move forward in their career. But they also pay minimal salaries for all non-management positions which means that unless you get promoted (I will talk about this later) you will be living on very meager means.

Often times, when presented with someone that is exactly what they need for a position they will pass that person up because they are not willing to pay them what they are worth. They would rather take the chance with the cheap employee then go with the surefire win. They also seem to be hiring a lot of foreign workers for this reason, this includes outsourcing some aspects of the business.

Another downside would also be the very wishy washy methods they use to determine that you should be promoted. It is a very emotion-driven decision for them. Thats great for some people, but I personally like to have goals that are not dependent on irrational reasoning.

You can be the most skilled and talented person on your team at what you do and make many amazing achievements and advancements for the company, but that rarely ever actually gets you promoted.

They are good people, their hearts are in the right place, but it can also be a very frustrating place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

You guys can be amazingly supportive and kind. That is something that I love about PlattForm. I know that you care about those under and around you. But giving us goals with no clear goal line ever appearing to us is insanely frustrating. Management always determines when you cross that finish line, you never know you have until you get promoted.

Another thing is very frustrating is that for awhile you were promoting left and right then you suddenly stopped. Often times many of us felt like you stopped short of promoting many of us and that many that you had promoted were less experienced/skilled/dedicated/etc than ourselves and thus less deserving than ourselves. Obviously there is some selfishness there, I won't deny this. However, you have no idea how aggravating this has been.

Now getting promoted feels like trying to win the lottery against millions of people, you play the game, but doubt you will ever win. That is not a good feeling. For those of us used to setting attainable goals and determining the steps to get there this means promotion promotion is a pipe dream that you hope for but will have to be really lucky to achieve.

That said, I still love PlattForm, the environment, the people, the attitude. Like any company they have their flaws, but they have far fewer than most companies I have seen.

Pros

-They do try hard to make it a more casual work environment.

-There is ample opportunity for personal growth if you are willing to get out there and take on as much as possible. (note: personal growth, not promotion) The experience is versatile and will look great on your resume.

-Yes, they do have a game room. And that's the one thing that every company should strive to have, right...?

-Fellow employees are generally fun and easy to get along with. Demographic is 22-27.

-It is a great starter job right out of college. You will get experience if you apply yourself.

-You will have fun here and that does make up for a lot of the more frustrating experiences you will also have.

-10 PTO days to start and the chance to earn 5 more through the year with a Health and Wellness Program.

-They do pay for your health insurance. Not so great a plan if you have a spouse though. Hopefully they have their own coverage.

-Please note, the negatives below may not apply to you depending on where you end up working. Or whether your manager can shield you from reality. Try media. I've never met anyone from media.

Cons

-Pay. This is low, even for advertising. This also affects retention rates. They can't pay to keep good employees. This is disappointing because they do not have a large number of tenured employees who can impart their wisdom. They really want to grow their business but this takes dedicated people to achieve...

-There is very little chance of promotion. There are not a lot of seniors but that doesn't really matter since senior is a title that doesn't actually mean much from what I've seen so far.

-It's advertising. It is fast paced and high-stress. That's why they have a game room and a culture club and other small things to provide distractions and breaks from the reality of the work day. Take it for what it's worth, get a few years experience and know that you'll probably be able to increase your salary by 10k-15k pretty easily when you find a new job.

-The company is taking their "run lean and mean" philosophy a little too seriously. The people I see working 10-12 hour days are not paid nearly enough to do so. The departments that need additional people are not getting them. Changes being implemented to save money are not planned out to make them successful. All this really does is make the client suffer.

-A large portion of upper management started with the company when it was formed in the former CEO's basement. (Michael Platt is no longer the CEO. http://www.plattformad.com/about-us/management) It feels like the company has grown too large for them to effectively manage it anymore.

-Feedback system is not the greatest. It is inconsistent in its application. I know of several people who should at the very least be on a PIP but have not been called to task or placed on one. (Performance Improvement Plan). I also know of several others who have been placed on a PIP out of the blue with absolutely no warning or prior feedback that there was anything they should be addressing...and they consistently asked for this feedback.

-CS Middle management seems to only be good for signing off on priority requests. This might actually be because no one has the time to deal with the supervisory roles they are supposed to be fulfilling. I can think of only one AS that seems to know what they're doing. The odds of regular CS employees being able to get the help and training they need seem slim to none.

-You will have a personal growth plan. This really should be under the Pro section but meeting about it what seems like every other week is overkill. More time is spent meeting about goals then is spent getting the feedback that can actually help you improve yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

-Increase your pay scale. The "this is what you're making if you include all the great benefits we offer" sheet that gets passed around during salary reviews is a joke. It all comes down to the money and PlattForm is a consistent underachiever in that area. I can't take your game room home with me and I only see a couple departments that seem to have the time to actually use it.

-Work harder to retain valuable employees. They can do twice as much work than the new college grads you're hiring to replace them and have to spend time training. Think about this problem in reverse. How much time and money do you loose when you have to replace someone with experience and train someone without? How much more stress is placed on everyone else who has to pick up that slack in the mean time?

-Work harder to eliminate employees who aren't performing. Incompetence slows down everyone in the company. If you are getting consistent feedback that someone is not cutting it, maybe you should listen to that feedback and spend a little more time to correct the problem.

-Rethink and evaluate some of the support that is currently supposed to be in place to build up your employees. If your middle management is too busy to do this, you need to figure out how to free them up so they can succeed. Otherwise it's just more money flushed down the drain.

Pros

When I was interviewing for jobs prior to being offered a position at PlattForm, several HR recruiters mentioned to me that I had excellent work experience, but they wanted to know what I'd actually accomplished. I didn't understand what they meant until I stepped into my role at PlattForm. The management saw enough in my abilities to offer me a leadership role and the opportunity to start a department from scratch. Once our team was hired and had proven itself successful, we were afforded a chance to start a bi-monthly news magazine, too, that's now in its fourth year of publication. I continue to be surprised by the level of involvement of senior management in day-to-day operations (in how many companies are the CEOs involved in strategy sessions and know your name?) and how much they care about the education industry. The unofficial company motto is "Work Hard, Play Hard", and they mean it. The fun atmosphere might be the best asset for a company that demands your best everyday. Any good idea, no matter who it comes from, is taken seriously ... I've seen interns make suggestions that upper management has taken into consideration. This is a great place to start in the marketing field, as other reviewers have noted, but it's also a great place to make a career if you understand one principle: you get back what you put in. All good work is rewarded in time. There are many people at PlattForm who've worked their entire careers there, which is impressive for their commitment and the company's consistency.

Cons

You're likely not going to be making six figures, but the education marketing field is going strong in the worst economy we've seen in decades. If you don't like to work hard, and if you don't have a sense of humor, this isn't the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Finding as many ways as possible to show employees how their contributions matter in changing the lives of students is critical.

Pros

PlattForm is a great place to work for the beginning of a career. The atmosphere is conducive to actually enjoying your work day. The average age of the company has to be somewhere in the mid to upper 20s, so there's always a place to find a friend. Also, the working quarters are close which can be a positive attribute as you have people off which to bounce ideas as well as an opportunity to take mini-breaks to decompress from what is a very stressful position. There is also ample break areas at PlattForm with a pool table, ping pong table, Wii, gaming machines, a coffee break area and a very nice lunch room. Everybody there is incredibly nice and accepting.

Cons

While PlattForm is a wonderful place to start your career, there is very little room for advancement. There are very few positions that are worth staying at the company for, and they are taken by young enough people that they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. The pay at the company is terrible compared to other agencies in the industry, sometimes 25% less than can be received elsewhere. While going through an interview process currently with another company, it has been revealed to me that PlattForm is sort of the red-headed stepchild of the industry and is not well regarded by others in the advertising world. When given new responsibilities at PlattForm, very little training occurs and you are expected to perform with the success of someone who has been doing these duties for years when, in reality, that is near impossible without being given the tools to succeed. Also, even though socializing and taking breaks is encouraged in order to increase productivity, it is monitored closely as the organization does not trust their employees. That can be evidenced by an internet use monitor. It is difficult to work for a company in which no trust is involved. Another issue with the company is that when changes are abreast, the employees are very rarely clued into these while rumors circulate to determine what exactly is going to happen next. This causes dissent among the masses and makes for a very difficult work environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Just be open with your employees. That includes keeping them in the loop as well as training opportunities. Many of the errors that occur would not be a problem if communication was kept at a much higher level.

Pros

It's a great, laid-back atmosphere that still gets a lot of work done. Everyone really knows how to balance work and fun - there is even a game room to prove it! Promotion opportunities are everywhere for those who are willing to work hard. And they have a great system of being able to give immediate praise for a job well done to or from a person or a whole group with their "fans" system which allows the work to be praised and explaination to be given of what was so great and it can be displayed for others to see, so the praise can continue.

Cons

Not always the highest pay (none for interns), and they are located farther away from the city center than many might want.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay the interns!

Pros

Great atmosphere and benefits, a creative and nurturing work environment, and a great group of employees make PlattForm a great place to work. Management really cares about the company's employees, and training opportunities are abundant. How many other companies are there where the CEO walks around sometimes giving out cookies to all employees?

Cons

Pay is unfortunately not competitive with the industry. This is true across all jobs at PlattForm. Also, I know this is probably the norm in the industry, but a few positions (client services and sales, mostly) are praised, rewarded, and promoted far more often than other less-public positions.

Advice to Senior Management

The work environment is great and the employees are treated well--but PlattForm does not hold a monopoly on these values. I've heard from numerous external sources that PlattForm is a place to hang out and work until you find a better-paying job somewhere else. This is a far cry from what we're going for, which is "industry leader."