Simon & Schuster Children's Reviews

Pros

Great people, good communication flow

Cons

Low pay, otherwise nothing bad to say

Advice to Senior Management

Overtime would help entry-level staff a great deal

Pros

Relatively fun environment, but things have changed the past couple of years with budget cuts.
Little things done to boost employee morale.

Cons

SImon & Schuster is a good place to start, but difficult to advance

Pros

The staff is friendly and helpful and make you feel like you're part of the team. You're able to easily interact with different departments, so everyone is part of the process.

Cons

Occasionally it feels like some of the employees in different departments think they are superior to others, especially when it comes to emails inquiring about possible mistakes in the databases.

Pros

Good work-life balance. Nice people.

Cons

Keep churning out only mediocre books. Where's the creativity?

Advice to Senior Management

Be more competitive and get into the web!

Pros

It's a great place to build up a network as people in the publishing industry come and go all the time. There are a lot of fun corporate events throughout the year such as Volunteer Day when all the participants get a day off to do service work.

Cons

The management needs training in communicating with lower-level employees. One of the biggest challenges I faced on a daily basis was working for a senior manager who did not know how to delegate work, was condescending, offensive, and unprofessional in many ways. Her management style was counterproductive and made it a very uncomfortable work environment. I was not the only person with complaints about this person and she is not the only one people complained about. Many of the departments are also short-staffed and underpaid.

The HR department is also incompetent and does not act on complaints.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more people, raise the starting salary to attract better talent, review employees with seniority.

Pros

I loved my coworkers at Simon & Schuster. Everyone was so friendly that it was a joy to go to work everyday. The location of the building at Rockafeller is fantastic.

Cons

Some of the books, especially the Young Adult section, was very commercial. I would prefer to work at a more literary house. It was very exciting to work in a place where we had so many bestsellers however.

Advice to Senior Management

I was very impressed with senior management officials when I met them at orientations and trainings. I thought Rick Richter was an amazing - he really worked his way up and I thought he was very authentic.

Pros

Flexible hours, fairly nice group of people to work with, summer Fridays, discount on Simon & Schuster books.

Cons

Not a true meritocracy, upper management is not open to new ideas, not great pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management should be more open to new ideas and take more chances (not be so generic, cookie cutter, and formulaic). Senior management should also allow reverse reviews so that managers know how their employees view them.