Pros
Generous PTO. Cool clients with big budgets. Talented colleagues.
Cons
This job made me quit PR entirely. I’m shocked by how much of these reviews resonate and it’s unsettling that things haven’t gotten better, and possibly even worse. I was on a toxic team with leaders who were MIA, spoke to you with little sensitivity, and played favorites. As leaders set the tone, effectively everyone else had to bend or be broken. As someone who was on the introverted end of extroverted, it was nearly impossible to get my voice heard on a team that was loud and aggressive. Somehow I managed to stay with this team for 3-4 years and never once was I asked to interview job candidates…again they played favorites. Our team culture was toxic and unethical. Never did I feel safe to ask for help and on the few occasions that I did, I was shot down. I was being bullied by a superior for some time and neither my manager nor a VP helped to rectify the situation. We fudged our reported numbers. We had strange budgeting and admin practices that made little sense and felt like a whole other job. No seriously. This job was like 4-5 jobs in one. I probably earned my JD. The agency needs to hire appropriately and that includes hiring paralegals, lawyers, and many, many more people to work on admin and finance tasks. If you were on P&G as I was, there was a long, long list of rules to adhere to and we had a word for this - one that my brain clearly doesn't want to remember. I cannot tell you how extensive this list truly is but it is oppressive and miserable being subjected to them. I distinctly remember a senior colleague telling me they didn't want me to succeed. That one hurt but I see their point now. What was the point of trying to grow in such an environment? We would also need to order product for our campaigns and because we said yes to the most condensed timelines imaginable, we would often have to ship out product through our personal Amazon Prime accounts. There is no work-life balance. I struggled to be a caretaker for my family and felt completely unsupported. I experienced intense burnout and was not listened to. I had so many breakdowns over this damn job and eventually, you hear that most people have too. One last thing to note: diversity and inclusion is not taken seriously at MSL or Publicis. It’s all virtue signaling. MSL once tried implementing a quota system for diverse hires. Their annual internship program is a great example of this.
