Pros
Every six months or so, they'll dangle a little trip in front of you. When you inevitably get upset you're making 20% less than they are at the competitor or you realize there is no room for advancement because they've decided to fill your role with a sociopath (because middle management is also made up exclusively of sociopaths), some useless training will come up somewhere exotic. You'll go to the training, meet some really nice, really friendly people. You'll bond with all of them because they're all as miserable and unhappy as you are. Booking.com is a colossal game of smoke and mirrors. For every perk handed out, two are quietly taken away. If you find yourself enjoying something, that's when it's time to get nervous. If I have to say something nice, it's that the job is usually pretty stress free. The managers don't really care much about you and they certainly never listen to what you have to say, so if you want it's pretty easy to fly under the radar. If you're a lazy, "happy just to have a job in this economy" type of person, you're going to do awesome at Booking.com. Oh, and free lunch once a month.
Cons
Booking.com has one heck of a scam going. They make more money than all their competitors combined, yet pay their employees 20-30% less than every other OTA. I think they figure that they can just keep hiring eager young people, wine and dine them until they realize they're being duped and then just go find more young people. You are and will always be expendable to Booking.com, just know that. The cycle can stop with you...seriously, do not take this job. A huge percentage of the managers are not only kind of crummy, but aggressively awful. The company grew so fast, that many of the managers earned their positions simply because they've worked with the company the longest; which in many cases is just three years. Booking.com always reminded me of an Oreo with a garbage filled center. On the one side, you have this brilliant visionary CEO. On the other side you have these bright entry level employees who are really earnest, nice people. Sandwiched in the middle is just this layer of really terrible people with atrocious management skills. If the Booking.com middle management had an Instagram account it would consist of mirror selfies, pictures of food and annoying hashtags. Managers are constantly making decisions that make you scratch your head. At first, you'll just shrug it off: "I guess that's how they want to run their business." Then you'll start to ask yourself, "Is this how things work at other companies? It can't be." Then you'll get upset, "Not only is this a poor business decision, but it also defies human logic!" Employees, at least in our office, walked around in a constant state of depression and outrage. Eventually you feel so surrounded by immaturity and incompetence you resign to your desk and work really hard with your headphones in just so that time passes faster. Maybe they're onto something there. Things are especially bad if you're a Content Editor. Did you go to school to write? Do you enjoy writing? I bet you like being creative too. Well, despite the job title, a Content Editor doesn't get to do any of those things. Isn't that fun? I have no idea why they keep hiring English majors for a job that no longer requires writing. The closest you get to "writing" will be checking thousands of robot generated texts for grammar. What great experience! As the job exists today, you'll spend most of your time calling or emailing hotels to have them send in photos. I hope you like sales, because that's what this gig basically is now. If you're an English major and you wanted to put your education to some use, run! Run as fast as you can from Booking.com. All I can tell you is what I experienced and that is working at Booking.com was a living nightmare. If you still want to work there after all that, well...
