Contently

1.0

Nov 20, 2019

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- If you pander to the right higher ups, you can move through the company very quickly, even if you are incredibly incompetent. - If you are aggressive enough and well-liked enough, you can carve out your own role at the company and add great resume points. This only works if you maneuver very carefully and don't make certain insecure employees in leadership positions feel threatened by your competence. - The hours here are great - you can arrive at work between 9:30-10 and leave between 5-5:30 and no one will blink an eye. - If you're tight with your manager, the unlimited PTO is great. If your manager doesn't like you, prepare to make a case for every single day you request off and get shamed and publicly questioned over sensitive topics like sick days and bereavement.

Cons

- If you share candid feedback with the wrong people in leadership, you will feel negative repercussions and possibly even get pushed out of the company. - Massive talent churn issues - the company was over 100 people when I started and is now under 40. People are leaving because the company has underperformed for years now, and the leadership is incompetent and hostile. There's basically no hope of selling at this point, their finances are in shambles. Forget the stock options, their stock is worthless. - MAJOR issues with cronyism where you're only promoted if you're "in" with the right group of people. This has built an incredibly toxic culture where incompetent people have been promoted to director and VP positions without the relevant experience. - Recently they've started to "ask people to leave" instead of laying them off and paying them proper severance. Then, the CEO complains that employees are "gossiping" when those being pushed out reach out to their networks asking for job opportunities, and word invariably gets out about what happened. Rumor is that Contently is having major cash flow issues and doesn't want to pay severance and unemployment for those being laid off. Either way, it's tacky, embarrassing, and probably illegal. - Disgustingly unprofessional management. VPs sleeping with Directors (everyone knows, by the way, and it's embarrassing), horrible treatment of employees who speak up (HR is of no use, even when managers become verbally abusive), and general gaslighting and finger pointing when things go wrong. - Employees can get pushed out for "not being a culture fit" despite making above and beyond performance quotas. If you are not perfect, cookie cutter, submissive and naively optimistic, you probably should stay away from this company. - Raises were a joke - something like $3000 extra a year was considered a big deal. Getting your commission from them can be an absolute nightmare, and they've defrauded sales people by laying them off and not paying their commission. They attempted to withhold Q3 commission from Accounts this year and only relented when they all threatened to quit. Doesn't matter because they all quit anyways. Engineer/developer salaries are 50-100% below market rate.

Contently Response

We are committed to fostering a positive and productive environment for all our employees, so we’re disheartened to hear that you had a negative experience at Contently. For the sake of transparency, we’d like to address some of the comments and misrepresentations in this review. In terms of compensation, we work hard to be competitive and in line with key industry leaders and have a consistent review period in which salary increases and promotions are considered on a fair and unbiased merit-based system. We often promote from within, giving opportunities to our rising stars. We’re very proud of how several of them have performed this year in new leadership roles. Additionally, we believe in open communication in our organization and strongly encourage our employees to discuss any concerns to their managers and HR. Attrition is inevitable at any tech startup, particularly when you bring on a new CEO. We’re happy that we’ve created a high-growth environment for our employees, and that many of them have gone on to start successful companies or take on leadership roles elsewhere. The attrition numbers in this review are inaccurate, but nonetheless, we’re very pleased with the team at Contently, and we’re excited to be hiring across the company going into 2020.

Cronyism and unprofessional behavior - Content Services Contently Employee Review

Explore other reviews about Contently

Want the inside scoop on your own company?

Bowls

Followed companies

Job searches