SmithBucklin Reviews

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

Pros – I worked with a lot of great people

Cons – There were not many opportunities for advancement

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

Pros – You make a lot of connections and can develop a lot of new skills. The creative team is a tight knit group of people and management is very protective of the creatives. The work is often diverse-ranging from print, web, video, identity, social media, etc. Mac environment.

Cons – Often there is too much work from one person. Not a lot of opportunity for upward mobility. Pay is a little on the skimpy side. Benefits shrunk while I was there.

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

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

Pros – There are a lot of talented people working together and it's a particularly good environment for young people to get experience.

Cons – In some divisions there can be a lack of growth opportunity. Also, some of the AE's aren't the most talented or easiest to work with.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – lots of young people, get to travel, make overtime when onsite.

Cons – pay, no people management training so your experience can be really hit or miss depending on who manages you. high turnover.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Lots of experience for new grad

Cons – Do not promote from within

Advice to Senior Management – Promote from within

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at SmithBucklin full-time for less than a year

Pros – Work with young people, develop good business tools, surrounded by talented people.

Cons – Pay, hard to move up within company, high turnover at 2 year mark

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – There is opportunity to work on a variety of projects and either learn new skills or build upon your current skill set.

Cons – Worked 50 to 60 hours per week on a regular basis. No formal notification system for people leaving the company. Often people in my department would try to contact someone on a work team and discover they have left without any notice. High turnover made the work environment seem unstable and getting new team members up to speed would slow down projects.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in more technology systems to alleviate manual work and potential room for error.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at SmithBucklin full-time for less than a year

Pros – I was able to learn a lot, however walked onto a very disorganized and chaotic client. I worked full time on the admin side. You could most likely get what you need to get and transition to a higher role at another institution. I loved making a lot of friends there and my teammates on the core team.

Cons – It's a very young company where the turnover is high and the compensation is not fully competitive for the DC market. It was a very disorganized environment where there needed to be a lot of structural initiatives to help efficiency. The professional learning can be good. However don't expect to move up quickly in salary.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay more and hire at the appropriate level commensurate with work experience and education!!!

Current Employee – been working at SmithBucklin

Pros – - A lot of really great, smart people work here. When you've got time to really strategize and brainstorm, some excellent work gets done.
- Diversity of clients and types of work
- Opportunities for learning and professional growth
- Solid salary and benefits structure
- Downtown Chicago location - and moving to new HQ office in late 2012 that will be even better

Cons – - Clients' financial challenges and mismanagement (by volunteers and sometimes by execs) can make it difficult to do good work, and to do it on time. LOTS of curve balls thrown at you. Be prepared. This is not a place for people who need smooth sailing.
- Ebb and flow of work - some periods (rare) are slow, while others are manic to the point of lunacy
- Turnover can be high in some service areas - but in some cases that's a good thing - as people who simply couldn't handle it (or were apathetic ) chose to leave, better people are typically hired in their place
- The ugly Marilyn statue outside the building (ha!)

Advice to Senior Management – Continue the hire the best and brightest and promote those who have earned it through honest effort and hard work.

Current Employee – been working at SmithBucklin

Pros – The people that work here are one of the main reasons I would suggest someone work at SmithBucklin. Many of the people I have met are friends I know I'll keep in touch with for years to come.

Cons – The managers here have no training on how to manage people. There is a high turnover rate due to the fact that most people start here right out of college and see it as an okay first job. Transition is not managed very well and due to the high turnover rate, this is never a good thing.

Advice to Senior Management – My advice would be to pay more attention to those that you hire or promote to manager level work. Not everyone is capable of managing effecively and a bad manager makes it easy to leave your job.