Blue Corona Reviews

Pros

-Coworkers- you'll meet and get to work with some really awesome people -Management- they care about their employees and want to help them succeed -Opportunity- If you're willing to put in the work, you will have opportunities to advance in your career here. -Experience- Blue corona works with a wide variety of clients giving you some really interesting experiences.

Cons

This job isn't for everyone! You have to be willing to put in the work. If you're looking for a job that's a regular 9-5, and won't require extra effort, this isn't the place for you.

Pros

Blue Corona isn’t for everyone. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t things that have frustrated me over the years. Even so, Blue Corona helped me grow in ways I didn’t know were possible. I understand that no place is perfect, but for me, Blue Corona was perfect as the first step in my career. I love Blue Corona, the people, the vision, the dedication, and everything in between. There might’ve been a few speed bumps along the way, but it added some excitement to the ride. There are a lot of perks about working for Blue Corona. You get free lunch every Friday. In-office massages are planned every few months. You’ll never be short on snacks or food—there are plenty of excuses for food competitions (bake offs, dip offs, etc.). You’ll end the day a little early on holidays and celebrate with snacks and games. You get a birthday celebration. There’s a yearly order of company branded swag (Patagonias, Yetis, etc.). You can work from anywhere (and get out at 3pm!) on Fridays in the summer. Blue Corona is a fast-growing company. When I started, there were ~30 employees. As of Q1 2020, there are almost 90 employees—and they aren’t slowing down. Growth doesn’t come without challenges, but it also comes with a ton of opportunities. I’ve seen people move from one team to another and find something they’re passionate about. I’ve seen people start their own department from the ground up. I’ve seen people move into management positions. There isn’t always a visible career path, but if you work towards it, it could happen. Your coworkers are awesome. You won’t find a better group of people in one place. I have met some of the hardest working and funniest people during my time at Blue Corona. Everyone genuinely gets along, will sit together at lunch, and hang out outside of work. Hard work pays off. If you come in and exceed expectations, you will be rewarded. People will give you shoutouts (that are displayed for the entire company to see). I’ve seen people earn off cycle raises, giftcards, promotions, etc. In my time, I was promoted twice (and recognized for my hard work more times than I can count). Your time here is what you make it. Blue Corona’s open book management is pretty unique. I believe this transparency is something that more companies should be doing and really sets Blue Corona apart. Previously, the entire company would get together every Tuesday morning to review the sales, cancellations, income, etc. from the previous week. Hearing these numbers (and getting together in-person as a team) helped build excitement across the company seeing the numbers grow as we would get closer to the annual goals. As part of the company’s current goals, they’re making efforts to be one of the “best places to work.” In recent years, Blue Corona has gotten much better at asking for and listening to feedback from the team—major thanks to the HR department for helping to facilitate this. In this past year alone, they’ve added Summer Fridays, improved company benefits, increased PTO, and added resources to improve onboarding and continued training. Overall, I wouldn’t change a single thing about my time at Blue Corona—I’ve learned more during my time here than I could have learned anywhere else. I had an amazing team that always had my back and managers that pushed me to reach my full potential. It was hard, it was worth it, and I would 100% do it all over again.

Cons

You’re going to be challenged and work harder than you ever have before. There will be times when capacity is down or teams are being restructured or systems are changing. Some days will be tougher than others, but from experience I can tell you, you’re going to come out a better person for it. Blue Corona provides a platform for you to excel and a management team that recognizes top contributors, but you need to be willing to give it your all. I list this as a “con” because this mentality isn’t for everyone. If you’re looking for a job where you stroll in at 9am, do your work, leave at 5pm, and don’t ever think about work outside of “work hours,” then this might not be the right place for you—and that’s ok. As I mentioned above in the “pros” section, there isn’t always a visible career path. While some might view this as a pro because of the flexibility, it can also be a con. I’ve seen people reach the two-year mark, unsure how to advance within the company. Because team structures and job descriptions are constantly changing, there isn’t a clearly defined career ladder to climb. People often reach this point and leave because it’s the only option they see. Because Blue Corona isn’t a huge company, it means they don’t always hire ahead of capacity needs. They hire as needed when someone gives their notice. (This is something they are aware of and have worked to improve over the past few months, but capacity is still a major concern in many departments.) Oftentimes, this leaves every team across the company struggling to manage their workload. There were numerous times when my workload doubled because of someone unexpectedly leaving. Each person has far too much assigned to them—leading people to work from home at night or on weekends just to meet deadlines. While there were times I found myself working 12+ hour days, I would like to stress that working 10-12 hours days is not the norm. That brings up the issue of quantity vs. quality. Do we try to get as much done as possible to meet assigned deadlines? Or do we turn in higher quality work that is way overdue? This was a constant issue during my time at Blue Corona. Management is constantly changing their mind about which should be prioritized (quantity or quality) and hitting client hours (which isn’t possible with the assigned number of clients per person), causing tension and feelings of being micromanaged throughout the team. While I think Blue Corona does a great job bringing in multiple voices and opinions into decision-making discussions, there are definitely times that you feel as though management is talking at you, not to you. Emails to management will sometimes go unanswered for weeks. Their to-dos to resolve issues (visible to the team in our issue processing platform) will go uncompleted week after week making the team feel as though their issues aren’t a priority/going to be solved. The team isn’t as close as it once was. We no longer get together with the Maryland office annually (which helped bond the offices). Teams don’t have the same relationship they used to because of the siloed roles. This is something Blue Corona has worked to preserve, but as expected with growth, it has been a bit of a struggle. Ultimately, I think the breakdown of relationships throughout the company and across/within teams had led to the higher turnover rate over the past year. A lot of what I said has already been mentioned in previous reviews, but one thing I would like to point out is that Blue Corona is aware of these problems and is actively working to improve the company based on the feedback they’ve received from those currently at the company and those who have left. When management says they want to win a “Best Place to Work” award, they don’t actually care about the award—they are focusing on building a company that the employees love and are proud to work at. Many new systems and processes are being put in place. Teams are being restructured. Management is shifting. There is A LOT happening all at once and it is extremely overwhelming. But I do think management is doing everything they can to resolve the issues they’re aware of and proactively get ahead of other issues that could arise as the company continues to grow.

Pros

You'll be pushed to your limits and learn to work faster. You'll become incredibly efficient out of necessity. You'll meet great people and build friendships. You'll get that agency experience you need to move on to something better. One or two managers are fantastic. This is a good place to get your foot in the door and learn valuable professional skills (like what not to do). Don't expect to have a good time.

Cons

Mostly management is manipulative--there's no transparency. Multiple people will be told "I see management in your future" when they ask for a raise. This is to get them to stop asking for more money. If you ask hard questions, you'll be given the cold shoulder. Favoritism is apparent. Workload is ridiculously unmanageable. Project management platform/operation is confusing and overcomplicated. Pay sucks for the workload. Quantity wins over quality almost every time. It's a churn and burn attitude around here. In your next job you might even be asked to slow down a little so you can dig deeper into projects. Something to look forward to. You'll be micromanaged. You'll be belittled by senior coworkers and management. If you're upset about something, don't bother with HR. Our HR department is one person covering two offices and (I think) nearly 150 people. If you've got a problem, you better go to your manager. Oh wait, your problem is with your manager? Oh well. People who resign are treated like traitors by upper management.

Pros

I am not an HR team member, and have not been asked by anyone to leave a review--I just wanted to share my personal experience. I really enjoy my work at Blue Corona. The people I work with are fun, and it's nice to have things like free lunch on Friday and company swag. Professionally, I feel challenged and supported; I feel there are opportunities for advancement. I received a lot of training, and have access to management. The company is growing quickly, and is transparent about growth goals and metrics. I came here to be a part of a growing company, and it's a nice change of pace from past jobs to be a part of it!

Cons

You're going to get out of it what you put in--it's not for everyone. If you're focused and have the right attitude, you'll do very well. And, if it's not for you, you can always change your circumstances and find something else!

Pros

To start, I was not asked by anyone at Blue Corona to leave a review, nor have I ever witnessed that go on. I feel the recent negative reviews do not represent Blue Corona fairly; to be honest, they have taken me completely by surprise. I have had an incredible experience at Blue Corona! It comes with a lot of office perks: free lunch Friday, summer Fridays are half days, company swag, beer fridge, birthday celebrations, massages, etc. However, that all only goes so far. When I was looking for a job I knew I wanted a workplace that was full of great people and a job that pushed me and made me better- and that is Blue Corona to a T. I love BC because of the people I work with and the work that we do. I genuinely enjoy coming to work and I feel so cared for by management. I am challenged often and learn something new every day. I love that my coworkers hold each other to a higher standard. Management often asks for my opinion or perspective, and gives me a transparent timeline of my future. Starting at the interview process, every manager asked me what I wanted with my future, who I wanted to be, where I wanted to go (and I am continually asked this about once a quarter). The people here are rockstars; they truly believe in what Blue Corona does, and you can see it in their work. Everyone here puts the team before themselves, so it is obvious that everyone wants the best for each other and the company. There is a lot of room for growth and I can see myself growing with the company every day.

Cons

For me, personally, I have not had a negative experience. But, I know this job isn’t for everyone. Ben told me when I had my final interview with him that this job was going to have challenges and at times it would be hard. And if Blue Corona is the fit for you, the challenges and hardships will only motivate you and push you forward, as they do for me.

Pros

Some of the people you work with are genuinely inspiring, hilarious, and creative. They made coming to work bearable. I hope they, too, look for work elsewhere.

Cons

Before reading this review, I implore you to look at the job titles of the reviews already posted. Most positive ones are by sales positions, and most negative are by anonymous or content positions. This is not a coincidence. Ben Landers’ replies to these reviews will try to convince you that these negative experiences are simply due to a lack of “culture fit” or that “hard work is not just for everyone.” Don’t be fooled. There is a severe ethical and moral problem within this company. It’s exemplified in many ways: 1) Pay. It is abysmal and degrading. This company will pay you the absolute lowest that they can, and then make you feel guilty for thinking you deserve more. I realize many people have said this before me, but it’s worth reiterating. I have seen people’s roles change completely, and when they ask for a new contract or a raise, they’re met with vague answers that basically imply that management hopes you forget you ever asked for one in the first place. You will work overtime. You will not get paid for it. You will feel guilty for working a side gig/second job because as a salaried employee of Blue Corona, “any time spent on another job could be spent on Blue Corona.” 2) Management. You will come into work on a Friday, be informed that your boss is stepping down, and be given a new, external boss you’ve never met before on a Monday. Managers are consistently late to meetings and never reply to private messages and seldomly email you back. They disrespect your time by skipping meetings, or drag meetings 45 minutes overtime. Managers have verbatim told team members “it is not my job to keep you here” and that they “want us to go out and find better jobs.” So we do, and then we’re branded as traitors. Managers will blatantly discuss new hires’ salaries in public workspaces. They will send out multi-paged lists of “expectations,” detailing how you should not have your phone out or take personal calls at any time, or how many breaks you get per day worked. It will make you feel like a child. 3) Workload. Stress is an unending emotion at this company. You will come into work stressed, and you will leave stressed. People cry in the bathroom. People have anxiety attacks and have to work from home for the rest of the day. You will get yelled at for not completing your work on time, or have private meetings where you’re expected to show your manager how “you’re the problem” and your plan for fixing your work ethic. Any suggestion of lessening workload is equated to you being lazy or not as hardworking as your peers. 4) Culture. Blue Corona sees their culture as the beautiful, solid foundation on which this company was built. But once a foundation begins to decay, everything built on top will come crashing down, too. The culture at this company is toxic and unprofessional. Everyone knows everything about everyone. When one person begins to fall or struggle, you’re told to “put your blinders on” and focus on “being a leader.” It’s hard to be a leader when the rest of your coworkers are depressed, exhausted, or intensely unmotivated by the company they work for. If you’re thinking about working at Blue Corona, I want you to ask yourself this: how bad does a company have to be to get multiple employees to write these types of long, detailed negative reviews? How much does a company have to degrade you for you to feel compelled to tell strangers on the internet not to work here? It has to degrade you a lot. Do not work here. You will be underpaid and overworked. You will have to work a second job. You will not be listened to.

Pros

Many of the people I worked with were great people and genuinely wanted to do a good job. It's a good place to make friends. Free lunch on Fridays, and short hours on summer Fridays. Casual dress code is nice.

Cons

-Listen to the other negative reviews, they pretty much cover it all. I know for a fact that some of the positive reviews are fake. -Pay is terrible, people are unhappy, the work environment is toxic. -Managers don't know what they are doing and make life miserable for their employees, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. They are not trained. As other reviews have said, you will be disrespected and micromanaged within an inch of your life. -There is way too much work to go around. You will be constantly stressed and overwhelmed, with no help from management. They will not hire to keep up with demand. They will make promises about new hires coming in, interviews they're having, or new "processes" that they are putting in place to help with workload, but all promises fall flat. The "processes" that they come up with end up creating more work for you, adding to the stress. -The CEO, Ben, makes rude and inappropriate comments about employee work ethic and work/life balance frequently. The culture of Blue Corona is a "shut up and take it" mentality. There is no positive culture at BC. They want employees who will give up their lives to the company, overworking themselves to tears and beyond so the company makes more profit. They say that if the company makes more profit, you will make a bigger end of year bonus, and yet people got gift cards as bonuses this year. -Blue Corona's marketing practices are out of date. New techniques/technology that have been around for YEARS and are considered best practices at this point are not used. It's honestly pathetic; when you're there you might not see it, but once you leave you will see how behind you were. It's a shame for the clients and for the employees who truly want to do good work. If you have little or no experience, do not come to BC. You will not learn what you need to learn to be competitive in the job market or stay current on marketing strategy. You will learn everything they can teach you in 3 months, then you'll plateau until you leave for a better company. Do yourself a favor and avoid wasting your time there in the first place.

Pros

They’ve somehow gathered a pretty awesome group of people, so your coworkers are great.

Cons

It’s easy to read negative reviews and think that they’re just from disgruntled employees and don’t hold much weight. I’m here to say PLEASE HEED THEM ALL. Out of the numerous jobs I’ve had, this is by far the single worst place I’ve ever worked. And, for a variety of reasons. 1- Pay. The pay is truly dismal and the benefits of “free lunch on Fridays” and a beer fridge don’t even come close to making up for it. If you try to make a case for a raise, like your workload tripling, you will immediately get shot down. That, or management will talk you out of raise - which sounds crazy but it will happen. 2- Management. Management is made up of the OG Blue Corona crew - not people who were actually ready for management. Favoritism runs rampant here, so much so that it’s truly baffling. If you can’t complete your workload, management will advise you to “not give it 100%” and to just do the absolute bare minimum so we can tell clients we did something. On top of this, management believes it’s not their job to retain workers or keep them happy. So if you have an issue, they won’t care. They also recently tried to ban the use of cell phones, but quickly backed down once confronted - this should tell you all you need to know about management here. 3- The workload. People are assigned INSANE workloads that are humanly impossible to complete. You will be forced to work 12+ hour days (which, with your abysmal pay, have you making less than a retail worker). And, if you miss a day, forget it. 4- The culture. Now, this is something Blue Corona prides itself on. They will harp on the culture throughout the entire interview process. The truth is, their culture is essentially a cult. Everyone is up in everyone else’s business. There are no professional boundaries whatsoever. Management just says whatever is on their mind. You’ll never get any sort of feedback on your work unless it’s negative. And if a client doesn’t like it, get ready for 15 meetings discussing how you’re the problem and talking about what you can do to fix it. 5- The communication. Nothing is transparent whatsoever. Your boss could be stepping down and you won’t find out until the day before … even if it’s been months in the works. On the flip side, AMs will tell you everything negative a client says, often word for word. So if you work here, get ready for your self-esteem and self-worth to plummet! All of this creates a chaotic atmosphere due to extremely high turnover. They’ll try to break it down into a percentage and tell you that their percentage of turnover isn’t that high - don’t fall for it. Nearly everyone on the content team has quit or is looking to quit. But again, management doesn’t believe it’s their job to keep people, so this will likely never change.

Pros

I got to work with some really great people. Keyword there is *some* Free lunch on Fridays Casual dress You can work from home on Fridays in the summer (sometimes)

Cons

Where does one even begin? Without a doubt the worst place I've ever worked. Firstly, do not believe any positive review that has been written, especially if it's 5 stars. The CEO and other managers literally command some employees to write positive reviews to try and hide the negative ones. If the CEO responds to this review and tries to claim it's not true, he's lying. The pay is abysmal and not even CLOSE to the median salary for similar agencies in the area. In fact, you're shamed for wanting a fair salary. Don't even ask about a holiday bonus (essentially nonexistent). Overtime is necessary, "brownie points" if you come in on Saturdays, but do not expect to be compensated for your extra hours. On top of that, if you need to leave early or if you have to miss a day for any reason, it doesn't matter if you worked 100 hours the previous week. They will make you use PTO. Up until late last year, they even made you use PTO for doctors appointments. There are some people who have been there for YEARS and have fully bought into this "Blue Corona culture." This culture is, at first, something they make you feel you want to be apart of. But soon, you start to realize that this culture is how they justify all of the awful things they do. They claim you're lazy if you ask for help with your workload because overworking is part of the "culture." You can't have a normal lunch break or leave at 5pm because it's not part of the "culture." You have to blindly follow orders from your managers and if you offer any sort of new idea or innovation, you're immediately shot down. Since managers are usually people that have been there a long time, it creates this "insiders" vs "outsiders" mindset that is so painfully obvious and strange. I am so sick of seeing the CEO's responses to the other reviews where he's constantly defending and praising their culture. It's not a culture. It's honestly a really manipulative way of making employees feel like they either have to conform or get out. They make you feel like there's something wrong with you because you're not happy or you don't want to work 60 hours a week. It's manipulative and gross. Even though the majority of employees and managers are pretty young (early 20's and 30's), the managers are very good at making you feel like you're in first grade. You're micromanaged, policed, and made to feel like children. There is 0 trust. They do not care what your previous experience is. They do not care how good you were at your last job or what types of things you could bring to the table. They only care about how well can you follow their rules, how quickly can you get your work done, and how many micro-mistakes did you make that month (we're talking about a missing comma or a misplaced period). People cry. People quit. Then management says they're the "best team we've ever been" and the person who left is branded a deserter. There is absolutely an INSANE amount of turnover. Don't let the CEO's responses saying their retention rate is "exceptionally high" fool you. That leads me to my next point... They constantly brag about their "transparency," but that's also a lie. They give out numbers like retention rates, monthly sales, amount of errors, amount of new accounts, etc to try and show how open and honest they are. However, these numbers have almost zero impact on your day-to-day and things that actually matter to your day to day are kept secret. If they're moving desk space around, they won't tell you where your new desk is until it's time to move. It's a secret to everyone except your team manager. Like what? We're all adults here and you can't tell me which desk I'm going to sit at until you declare It's Time? So unnecessary and weird. People will get hired or change positions and no one will know except managers for months. EVERYTHING is a secret, besides the random sales numbers they're constantly shoving in everyone's faces. There is so much wrong with this company and it's honestly mind blowing. Please do not work here. Do not accept any offer, no matter how charming you think they are. They are masters at lying. They do not promote internally. They do not pay you fairly. They do not value you as an individual. They do not care about your unique skills. There is no work/life balance. The work is boring and monotonous. There is no trust. You will not be happy here.