Pros
The only pro is the experience you gain that you will be able to discuss in interviews for future jobs.
Cons
There isn't enough time in a day to properly illustrate all the cons of working at this company. Please keep in mind, I'm not a bitter, former employee who just got fired and wants to bash Design At Work. Everything I have to say is completely true and factual. I'll save my opinions for the end. Facts and scenarios I witnessed: 1. DAW overworks all employees and if you struggle you are shamed and made to feel like you are the problem. 2. DAW is a branding company. Not a marketing company. They brand companies fairly well and then completely fail at long-term success for clients. Every client ends up getting pitched endless eNewsletters and eBlasts - nothing truly unique is ever done. 3. If you work here for more than 6 months you'll realize that all the branding campaigns for new clients look the same. They definitely have a cookie-cutter way of working that they think works for them. No "out-of-the-box" thinking. 4. The company is not run in an intelligent way. They hire a bunch of new people when the workload reaches a breaking point and all employees are losing their minds with the massive amount of work. Then multiple clients will quit at once and they can't afford to keep the same number of employees so they fire a big group of people. Over and over again. 5. They love to tell people how much they're growing but in reality they've kept about the same number of clients for YEARS. Business Development can barely keep up with the number of clients that are quitting so they say whatever they have to, to rope in new clients. Then the account managers are stuck trying to deliver on those promises, even when impossible. 6. The only way to get a decent salary is to negotiate like crazy before you start the position. Raises are not given fairly or frequently and the range of salaries for the exact same position is enormous. Account managers made anywhere from upper $30's to $60's - and it has nothing to do with experience. Don't accept a lower salary thinking you'll earn your way to higher pay. 7. The reason you see so many positive reviews on here is because they created a "Glass Door Committee" that peer pressured employees into writing positive reviews. Whenever a negative review was posted they all tried to guess who it was and talked very negatively about whoever they landed on as the culprit. 8. Upper management is truly a "Mean Girls" club that will remind you of the worst parts of high school. 9. The owner of the company is beyond inappropriate with employees and clients. Always joking that they don't have an HR department, as if that excuses his crude jokes and offensive remarks. 10. Anyone who ever left the company (whether on their own terms or not) was talked about negatively to the rest of the employees. 11. Once someone commented on the lack of diversity within the company and the President (who was probably drunk) said "yeahhhh, black people don't really work out here". 12. During my time at DAW I saw many people fired without warning. And truly without legitimate reason, in some cases. So, the owner of the company instituted a policy that no one could be fired. Ever. We set very clear rules regarding what would happen if an employee truly wasn't a good fit and needed to be let go. But everyone was promised that they could breathe easily and stop coming into work every day paranoid that they would be fired without warning. Then they fired a whole group of people...without warning. Then they did it again a few months later. They constantly preach their core values and hold employees up to the highest of standards, yet can't seem to figure out how to run the company on the same values. Now for my opinions: DAW is operated like an exclusive club where the middle-aged women in upper management can gossip and have their fun manipulating people and making everyone miserable. If you are a current employee and you think "gee, it's not that bad - this person must just be bitter!"...think again. Every single person that accepts a position at DAW goes through a period where it seems fun and exciting. The women in upper management may invite you on trips or to fun outings and you'll feel special. Sure, it may actually even BE fun! But just give it time. Sooner or later you'll realize that you're overworked, underpaid, and miserable. No doubt, the President will reply to this with a vague "I'm sorry you feel that way, DAW isn't for everyone and we realize that the environment is challenging!" I hope the placating response doesn't convince anyone reading this, who is looking for real insight into life at Design At Work. Trust every poor review you read and run far away.
