Direct Development reviews

Unfortunately these women are often overlooked in favor of the CEO’s little favorites. These consist of the 7-12 people who have been with the company since prior to them going fully remote. The executive team is very incestuous and clique-y. If you didn’t work at the Virginia location before COVID, your opinions, skills, talents, and needs mean absolutely nothing. They can’t keep people on staff because the people they have put in charge have no people skills, no experience in marketing, and no respect for anyone outside of themselves. There are zero SOPs and if you ask how they want something done or ask for clarification on how something should be done to their standards, they will demean you and your knowledge , and then move past it without actually answering the questions. All their “marketing recommendations” are the same for every client. So if you have education or experience in copywriting, IT, digital advertising, project management, or marketing in general, this place is NOT for you. You will not be able to grow your knowledge and will be forced to do things that are not best practices/outdated, all while being gaslit by CSMs and department managers with no experience. Last thing, this workplace is not neurodivergent friendly AT ALL. And they are constantly spouting their religious beliefs in work meetings as well ask asking people if they go to church, what kind of church, and being very judgmental of those who do not subscribe to their Christian beliefs. *these are all simply opinions based on my experiences working here.

I would recommend working for one of the many organizations where you can have the same salary and job title, but with greater benefits and a hiring scheme that isn't just "bad leaders hiring bad people they know." You can even work less than 60 hours per week at those places. To show you what I mean, I'll help interpret one of the fake reviews management left here, in my opinion: #1: "If you don't like collaboration and working in teams, this is not the place for you" This means: "We're a culture that requires the emotional manipulation or incestuous hiring of people in order to get them to stay, and if it becomes clear that you're unwilling to be manipulated, we will cut you and any others out, no matter how many or how it affects the people left behind. We'll get away with this by putting people in leadership positions who haven't really worked in well-managed companies before (or are life-long friends/family members), have them manufacture a culture around transparency and kindness, and then weaponize their transparency and kindness against everyone. This leads to a culture where inexperienced people quickly become promoted and enmeshed in organizational co-dependency while still being vastly under-rewarded, and everyone else leaves or is let go." #2: "If you struggle balancing responsibilities and time management, this is not a great fit for you" This means: "You will work 50-60 hours per week under sublte-yet-pervasive micro management tactics, and you'll like it. You also will only have 15 days off to be sick, take breaks, or schedule personal time & responsibilities. We will support you through hard times, though, if you carefully follow the rules laid out in #1" "If you don't adjust to change easily, you will struggle here." This means: "You will get psychological whiplash from existing in a mature start-up environment where tactics are tweaked consistently in an effort to balance leaderships' comfort/convenience and a cheap price range for clients, which ultimately puts you in the crossfire."