Pros
- Culture: from the moment you step through the doors, you feel welcomed, with open arms (literally). From coming out during the internal meetings, you truly feel the family connection everyone feels at Tribu. As a small agency people take pride in being part of a close-knit team. They want to be there and are passionate about producing great work. - Apprenticeship: I love the workshops, online classes, and all the learning opportunities you can get directly from a 10+ year company. - Growth: it is so exciting to see the career growth opportunities in your role. As someone who has never been shown that I could be anything but do lesser jobs all my life and to be shown that there is a whole window of opportunity out there if someone takes a chance on you because they SEE the potential within you... that is truly amazing. - Appreciation: I see how appreciated I am... not just by Sara, our CEO, but by everyone at Tribu. We call that #TribeLove and we shout out to each other whenever we do amazing work or feel like a Tribe Member (how we call the employees here) helped us out in a pinch or we feel like they need some love. - No day here is the same: Yes there are repetitive tasks but every day something new hits your desk where your creativity and personality are demanded to make a great job (or brand) come to life. Every day is different, and every project presents new challenges. - You are encouraged to go outside of your role descriptions. It is not uncommon, for example, for the art director to help with digital marketing, or for a digital marketer to dive into content strategy. Because of this process, there is an almost endless opportunity to explore, learn, and grow. - Bonuses: At Tribu, we don't believe in the red tape that limits your exposure to multiple brands and direct one-to-one communication with clients making you another cog in the machine which comes with having account managers. Instead, every Tribe Member, who shows great communication skills, is encouraged to become "Tribe Account Leads" and for every lead you are per retainer, you receive a bonus added to your pay! How cool is it that you get rewarded for skills that are already natural to you or have developed, for building partnerships, and even for becoming a trusted adviser to our Partners?! Instead of being at a larger agency where you have very narrow breadths of responsibilities. You can even get a bonus for being the lead on a project too when taking it to early completion, meaning you finish earlier than the original timeline stated in the SOW. Being able to see a project from start to finish or to understand and influence its development, is truly amazing and a chance you do not get to experience at all agencies. - Perks: Whenever we achieve great things as a company, we all get rewarded. Last year we went to the Commal River and floated during the hot days of summer. So everyone is encouraged to strife through their challenges with guidance from their managers to break through the things that are blocking them or holding them back so they can be their most creative selves and reach new goals. So once a company-wide goal is hit, we go out and celebrate. We also have a paid holiday break between Christmas and New Year so we can all be with our families to celebrate after a year of hard work and come back with our minds refreshed We are adamant about hiring passionate superstars who are not only the best at what they do but also fit our company culture. I say we a lot because I really feel like "we" as part of something bigger than myself than just an "I." I have only been here for not too long but I really feel like I truly belong.
Cons
These are not cons... But I will address some cons from past reviews and give you my personal take on them: - Overworked (Reality: Poor time management): I will say that if you come in every day to work prepared, know time management and how to organize your tasks within a simple timeline... Then you will not feel burnt out or behind on work. Because trust me if you are not good at this then you will feel very quickly like you are constantly behind but if you are on top of your Asana, write tasks down, treat it like your daily bible, and know how to prioritize, then you will have no trouble here. It is easier said than done and time management is something you work on every day to get better at and some days will be tougher than others so in the light days' strife to get ahead so when a hard day comes around it does not feel so burdensome. Remember that it is your responsibility to be on top of tasks and make sure you meet the deadlines. - Bad management (Reality: Leadership training): If you believe bad management is you ask your manager a poorly crafted question (meaning you did not research in advance or even tried to look for an answer yourself, instead want to take the easy path and ask your manager) and expect your manager to give you the easy answer, BUT instead your manager prefers to enlighten you to help and guide you to find the answer yourself even if it means that you will take an extra 10 or 20 mins to find it... that way you can break through the challenge and excel with an answer yourself and afterward feel even better that you were able to grow through it maybe even be able to help other peers who would be at the same spot as you once were and guide them through it instead of giving the answer away. If that still seems like bad management to you then I am sorry to tell you that if you expect to live an easy laid-back life at Tribu, then this will not be a good fit. There is a quote that says, "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." We aim to train Leaders here not people who expect to get an answer to every question with no work. Also, be empathetic of not just your peer's time but your leaders too as they carry bigger and heavier responsibilities than you and they might not give you the easy answer but will share with you their time so they can help you. - Low pay (Reality: Fair pay): you expect to be paid like a leader and expert in your craft, meaning someone with years of experience and stories to tell under their belt, has a thing or two to teach you, knows how to navigate meetings like a pro, their to-dos are always or most of them checked at the end of the day and knows how to prioritize, and knows too that sometimes going above 40 hrs per week just to get ahead is not as if you would be sacrificing your whole life for your job to then complain about it when it happens to other employees (because it will happen, no job is black and white). Then and only THEN you can negotiate and leverage higher pay because you have demonstrated what you are capable of and what you are made of. If you are a true superstar then you will be rewarded earlier because management knows and sees when they have a rockstar between them. Because no company will throw away a good salary on someone who promises that they can do this or that and then they undeliver, show a lack of effort and work, misses timelines, and break each promise instead of rewarding the true hardworking players. Sometimes it means you and the company are simply just not a good fit but that does not give you the right to judge it simply because you could not make it thinking this job was going to be easy. There are some things in life you can't just fake until you make it. If you are truly unhappy then no workplace would want to be the reason you are unhappy and can't reach your goals in life but if it means that out there is a job that will help you unlock your inner creativity, and passion and aligns with what your goals then we will accept that, give you an honorable goodbye and truly wish you the very best. But there are always other ways you can ask for higher pay like "Hey what would it take for me to earn X amount in salary?" and Leadership will work with you and guide you to get you where you need to be so you can feel like you truly earned it through hard work, perseverance, and dedication. - They only care about money (Reality: Every business cares about money. This even applies to employees, every employee cares about how much money enters their bank account every month): I am sorry to say this but do you not care about money too? Also doesn't a company need money to keep its doors open, pay your paycheck every month, and get all the software and programs that help you do your job well? Every company is money driven and needs to meet a quota, it is what keeps the food on the table every day and guarantees that food will keep coming to the table (that includes your table as we care as well that food is still going to you and your family). But you are not just a number here either, Leadership will work and tough it out with you if you are going through a rough patch, as we all do in life, and if you show promise and like a valuable honest individual then we'll train you to where you need to be so you can earn a higher pay through your hard work and learned skills so we can help you achieve those dear goals you have set in life. - Lastly, the CEO has worked for the last 10+ years and given part of her life, time, and sweat to create the wonderful place Tribu is. Can you say proudly that you have built and still are in business after 10 years? Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Not everyone knows what it takes to build a business or the things in life you have to sacrifice in order to build one. The people who come here know how hard freelance work is and that doing it all on your own is no mere task. We all cannot take lightly the power of being on the internet and anonymously throwing out lies about someone else's business without even knowing the truth behind it because you thought you knew everything there was to it after being a few months here. Grow some empathy.
