Pros
The handful of talented people you will meet before they inevitably make a swift exit for greener pastures. It appears as though a former colleague removed his or her post from April 2018, which is a shame, it was painfully accurate. Given that the Editor in Chief decided to tweet about it, ostensibly in lieu of taking it into account, I dread that this person has been pressured to remove the review. Yikes. Perhaps that maneuvering was done out of pure damage control; after all, Digiday is reportedly seeing over a 50% turnover rate these days, which higher-ups have passively written off as fine, “normal for young employees”. Blame the turnover on millennial tendencies all you want, but you can’t ignore the sheer talent that slips through Digiday’s fingers. Consider the fact that the SVP, who stood out like a sore thumb for his charisma and tact, left before clocking a full year. Clearly, the mess goes beyond generational trends.
Cons
Digiday continues to do more with less: expectations rise while the budgets thin, and the morale that keeps employees afloat is the hope of launch-padding to a better career opportunity. Seriously, 75% of Digiday employees get a high off of talking about their ongoing job search. While the exposure to different industries and companies is nice, there’s no denying that Digiday products can often be embarrassing, and sometimes flat out bad ideas. Case and point: Digiday+....Who or what is this publication really serving, besides the c-suite egos of the company? Don’t expect benefits, and don’t expect your higher-ups to be true to their word, but do expect to be micromanaged, and prepare to play petty games of mental chess with management. Try not to act surprised when you realize just how shoddy the financial practices are. If you’re a reporter, you have to endure the exasperating arrogance of the EIC. If you’re on the commercial side, guarantee your job will at some point be made x10 more difficult by one of the GMs, who is somehow allowed to lord over their position and domino-effect misery across departments. Several complaints have been made against this person’s conduct, and still no change - I blame the laughable lack of real HR. Asking for a raise or a role transition is often taboo, yet somehow shotgun decisions on hires are often made. Digiday has seen some embarrassing and alarming conduct on behalf of past hires (think: showing up to work hammered, sending inappropriate slack messages late at night, and acting out publicly at Digiday events). The office space is far past outgrown. The bathrooms are decrepit and no longer accommodate the staff size, and though there are sometimes snacks, you are better off assuming there are none at all. The availability of meeting rooms and phone booths, which are laughably positioned by the podcasting space, is beyond impacted. This inevitably creates annoyance and tension between different departments...but don’t you dare displace or inconvenience the editorial team, because that’s just heresy at Digiday. Did I mention that everyone outside of the edit team is basically a second-class employee? :)
