Razorfish Reviews

Pros

- Great environment, really care about people, aggressive analytics

Cons

More of an analytics shop than an advertising shop - which means your expertise is always one sided.

Pros

Great people motivated to do quality, innovative work. Everyone is dedicated to pitch in. Good support of work / life balance.

Cons

Career path not always clear, slow to promote.

Pros

strategic thinking is highly valued at razorfish, analytical problem solving skills are abundant across the organization and are an important part of why the company delivers great work to its many clients.

Cons

as the company has grown, there has been some challenges with integrated with publicis and maintaining the razorfish identity.

Advice to Senior Management

try to stay as independent as possible

Pros

Lots of holidays, pay well
401K
Work with exclusive clients with a variety of backgrounds
learned a lot about the importance of process

Cons

Unbridled character bashing of lower level employees occurs within the management staff. A lot of misuse of power among management staff.
Long hours, no recognition
No continuity of management skill set, everyone has a set of different expectations from their managers

Advice to Senior Management

Define a cohesive system to management styles across all disciplines. Focus on aspects of the business that will encourage retention.

Pros

Most of the employees are terrific -- smart, innovative, hard working and fun to work with. Razorfish has a great portfolio of clients with whom Razorfish collaborates on cutting edge interactive work.

Cons

The senior management team seems to truly be out for themselves and their bonuses. The primary value driving decision making at the leadership is purely profit. Because the company does not seem to stand for other values, like quality and innovation, caring about employees or even clients, decisions are extremely reactionary. This is not a way to build long-term client relationships or build long-term employee teams. There have been several reorgs within the past year to 18 months. These are rarely announced to the broader team and the impact to staff isn't planned for or discussed.

Advice to Senior Management

Build real relationships with the excellent people who there in order to stop constant turn over. Communicate more frequently and at all levels. Set realistic expectations with clients and back up your own employees.

Pros

RF definitely respected and encouraged a work/life balance. The Atlanta office in particular was a great place to be.

Cons

As with any company, there are people and processes that could use improvement. There were a few cases where one wonders, "How did they get to the position they're in?"

Advice to Senior Management

Get back to paying attention to how the employees are treated. It seems that in recent years, Director and VP level managers missed the mark on how to best treat employees. In a few departments, there was an enormous amount of stress and turn-over.

Pros

- You'll get exposure to some really creative and strategic thinking
- Lots of thought leadership
- Plenty of room to grow internally and work on various brands; opportunities to move around between accounts
- People seem to be genuinely happy to come to work
- Nice office perks and social events

Cons

- Location of office is a bit troublesome and out of the way

Pros

Excellent benefits and paid time off packages, with a long list of company holidays too. (since transferring ownership to French company Publicis.)
Many great, very intelligent individuals who are on top of the digital marketing game.
Lots of opportunities to learn.
Swanky offices in generally good locations.
Great reputation and decent name recognition.

Cons

Lack of management across the agency. Projects are often poorly estimated/managed, leading to consistently tight margins and a reactive response.
Very tactical approach lacks long-term strategy and vision.
The agency can feel fractured into client teams and different disciplines, with duplication of effort and lack of cross-pollination.
Career paths seem limited. Lots of typical agency turnover.
If you're competent and willing, you're going to be overworked, limiting your ability to enjoy all the PTO you are offered. The brightest and most talented get stretched too thin to be beneficial to the company or themselves.

Advice to Senior Management

Put some long term strategies in place to help transition from a typical, frenzied agency environment to the technological industry leader it could be. Communicate these without a lot of jargon and meaningless brand fluff consistently and with vision to employees. Don't limit this strategy and vision to just the leadership and senior management teams. Show how this will be achieved and how all employees contribute. Actually follow through.

Pros

Great team and account, doing interesting work. Great roster of clients.

Cons

Poor executive management, invisible and lacking vision. Little knowledge of work, thus low perceived value.

Advice to Senior Management

Create a vision, prioritize offerings, have relationships with individuals.

Pros

Good work life balance and very supportive of family needs.

Cons

We sometimes do not hire or promote well qualified individuals with integrity.