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QuinStreet
2.9 of 5 76 reviews
www.quinstreet.com Foster City, CA 500 to 999 Employees
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QuinStreet Reviews

Updated May 16, 2013

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2.9 76 reviews

                             

62% Approve of the CEO

QuinStreet Chairman and CEO Doug Valenti

Doug Valenti

(58 ratings)

47% of employees recommend this company to a friend
76 employee reviews
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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time

ProsGood compensation, good benefits. Flexible hours. Flexible work from home policy. I've seen many people get promotions and move up. Also many people make horizontal moves to different departments.

ConsI have nothing negative to say. You might read some other negative reviews but some of those people will always find something to complain about. Quinstreet is not perfect, nothing is.

Advice to Senior ManagementAvoid recognition awards and ceremonies based on social popularity and not measurable performance. Awards based on popularity only demoralize those productive people who are not the social butterflies..

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

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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time for more than a year

Pros- Intelligent individuals who are passionate about their work (until they get worn down)
- Free snacks/lunches
- Free parking (in a company garage)
- Flexible working hours (work from home, etc.)
- Cool company party at the end of the year

Cons** The cool company culture that resides in specific verticals/departments do not extend throughout the whole company. Hence, the reviews here can be very well all over the board.**

- Interns and associates don't get compensated very well. Interns with a bachelors degree come on-board for $10-$12/hr for the first 3 months before being considered for a salaried position as an associate
- Been through 3 rounds of layoffs in my 2 year tenure. Company not doing great despite all the optimism upper management tries to spoon feed you - very little transparency
- No career growth. Layoffs mean less people to do more work. Additionally, the focus is now on maintaining business operations not on your career/interests
- If you don't suck up, you don't belong here. If you don't agree with all the decisions upper management makes, you will get an immense amount of push back with your work
- Upper management do not participate in the daily grind of operations yet they make all the high level decisions that impact operations in ways they do not understand
- Upper management is reactive NOT proactive about technological support/updates - if you want to work with a system that is constantly broken, try Quinstreet
- Upper management does not see the employee retention problem - when individuals leave, management tends not to listen or absorb the reasons people are leaving. The mentality is that individuals who leave just don't have it in them to continue; that, is the wrong mentality to have

Advice to Senior Management- Listen to the people that do all the grunt work. They are more likely than you to understand all the roadblocks and see all the interlocking details
- Reward individuals based on performance not sucking up. Those who agree are those who very well do not critically think. It is people who play devils advocate that understand the business - they may not be sucking up to you but that's because their value is based on knowledge and talent instead
- When individuals leave, don't play the blame game; it is much more wise to reflect on the reasons why they're leaving

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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Edmond, OK

Former Employee – worked at QuinStreet full-time for more than 3 years

ProsCompensation is great.
Flexible work environment.

ConsCommunication between upper management and employees are minimal and need improvement.
Too much analysis done, instead of execution. Too engrossed with the numbers.
Outlook of company does not look great, so overall optimism and spirit within the company needs to be picked up to improve the company overall.

Advice to Senior ManagementCommunication and involving those in the team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Foster City, CA

Former Employee – worked at QuinStreet full-time for more than a year

ProsHigh level of responsibilities provided from day 1
Leader in their marketplace

ConsPolitical
Change of directions w/o notice

Advice to Senior ManagementCreate a long term plan and communicate with emplyees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time for more than 3 years

ProsNice location, free snacks in cafeteria, smart co-workers. If you have Hollywood dreams, you might even get a chance to star in a theatrical production produced by a C-level executive.

ConsFrequent layoffs, Company is not doing well financially. Outdated / old technology stack, so no chance of learning something new.
Primary criteria for growth in company is how good you are at sucking up. This is an open secret and the management kind of likes it that way. Not a merit-based company.

Advice to Senior ManagementThe company might be better off if some of the C-level executives were doing theatre full-time. The culture in that particular department is toxic.
Mr CEO, You have stuck with this set of people and see how it is turning out. Maybe it is time to get to a makeover. The next set of people cant do any worse. You deserve a better team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time for more than 3 years

Pros- You never complain about compensation, one of highly paid places.
- Culture is good, causal environment.
- Balancing your work and personal, manager respects your personal priorities.

Cons- Career opportunities are veryyyyy limited. Top management don't value talent, so don't expect much support if you want to do something innovative.
- No process ownership, if any wrong kind of people own it. While implementing new projects there is no value for business analysis practices and very less efforts on complete pre-project analysis and planning.
- There is very less effort made to retain employees, even when team, vertical or the whole company is struggling.
- Make sure you think twice before joining, don't solely go by compensation it can be pain if you decide to move on.

Advice to Senior Management- Communicate frequently with your employees about current strategy and goals, specially now when the company is so bad.
- Fast implementation of your technology projects is costing you a lot. When your revenue is directly proportional to time your system and sites stay up, then why take such a risk. Hire specialist who can set process at every level, specially on the tech side. I mean the company is not a start-up any more.
- Most of you tech team has settled down to very causal and relaxed attitude, shake them up a little bit.
- Try to retain your motivated or talented employees, you can get a lot done from them. Compensation is not the sole thing to satisfy your employees.

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

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Los Angeles, CA

Former Employee – worked at QuinStreet full-time for more than a year

ProsIf you prefer using Ctrl C+ Ctrl V , this is the place to be.

ConsKeep pressing F5, and learn your ropes of css & html.

Advice to Senior ManagementKeep taking freshers, so that you can retain some amount of work force

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Reno, NV

Former Employee – worked at QuinStreet full-time for more than 3 years

ProsA good team of friendly people
Plenty of work, especially right after acquisitions
A very team-oriented atmosphere in the smaller offices

ConsKeeps problems under wraps and pretends all is well, especially when it's not. Employees, even higher level ones, are kept way out of the loop.
Hires and fires with impunity. Your job is never secure!
Has trouble keeping the best talent.
Pay rates are not competitive in the business, and raises are non-existent. NOT a meritocracy.

Advice to Senior ManagementGet serious about hiring only the best talent and pay them enough to keep them there. A much more open culture would be appreciated. Being so closed-off about what the company is doing makes your employees suspicious, which then makes us look elsewhere. Simply take a look at the good ones you have lost over the past year to see clear evidence of the trend.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time

ProsWide range of opportunities in certain areas
Nice people, decent office atmosphere, free snacks and drink
Stock options for some
Internet company with growth potential

ConsCompany attempts to keep bad news under wraps (to employees and investors)
Direction of company is muddled at the top
Uncertain future in key businesses
Comparatively low salary and slow promotions and pay raises, if any
Problematic acquisition last year resulted in employee churn and lawsuits
Oversea employees have too much authority -- lack business expertise and not flexible with peers
Traffic growth proving difficult to achieve

Advice to Senior ManagementEase off hiring outside consultants as employees. Promote within and trust those who have committed themselves to company.

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

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Foster City, CA

Current Employee – been working at QuinStreet full-time for more than 3 years

Prosseveral really good people still remain
good place to learn about online marketing
has some promising products and technologies

Conssenior leadership is not very visible
there is virtually no communication from top management
top management appears close minded, not open to feedback
the company has lost many good people over the last year, yet there seems to be no acknowledgement of this and no steps taken to understand how to motivate and retain top talent
appears to lack vision and strategy of how to get back on track (or perhaps it does but it's not evident to employees as it's not being communicated)

Advice to Senior Managementseek to understand how your employees feel about the company, what motivates them and what they would like to change, especially when you are facing hard times. showing willingness to listen is not a sign a weakness, but rather of wise leadership

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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