Pros
- Remote Work - Work That Advances a Portfolio
Kontras
- Low Compensation - Expensive Healthcare - Lack of Senior Leadership - No Mentorship - Extremely High Workload - Stress and Burnout are Inevitable I had very high hopes for this role and this company. When I was interviewing, I thought I had stumbled upon my dream job. It all seemed so glamourous. Do great work in your specific niche, build a great portfolio, soak in the support of a fantastic team, and do it all in a remote setting with “great work-life balance”. Everyone I talked to while interviewing had only glowing reviews of the company. They made me feel like we could be really good friends and accomplish beautiful campaigns together. They handled my hardball questions with ease and were overall very charismatic. I thought, man It’s so hard to find leadership that I actually respect, how lucky am I. I was weighing two different offers, one with a very good compensation package but in a different industry, or ePromos who offered me 57k for four years of experience under my belt. I told myself that they must not have enough resources and the low offer was worth it to have a great team and awesome company culture, so I chose ePromos. Now, I feel like I was swindled out of an amazing offer after falling for what I now believe was love bombing and concealing the true issues that are core to the ePromos culture. When I started I was ambitious, focused, and worked very hard to advance my expertise in my niche and drive sales for the company. But quickly, red flags began to reveal themselves. Layoffs and senior leaders leaving one by one, and in every case, the overall narrative on the team was either the person was lazy/ didn’t want to do the work or they were working against the company and couldn’t get on board with the changes needed to advance our goals. I suppose they will say that about me as well when I am gone. I have no expectation of receiving recommendations at this point. I’m actually burning my last bridge here to warn you about this company by writing this review. What happened to me progressed quickly, they scooped up the last bit of hope I had for a marketing career and hollowed me out. I gave them everything I had. I could try and list it here, but I’m gonna take a guess and trust that if you are reading this far, you believe me. The first time I brought up my concerns about workload and expectations, I was given an “anti-burnout plan” where I was led through blocking out my entire calendar with every task I had and making estimates on the spot of the time each task would take. At the end of the meeting I was left with a fantasy calendar of what my day should look like and the expectation that I would use “time management strategies” to get it all done like in the pretty excel sheet. At that point I thought I could do it, I thought that I was simply deficient in some way and could just lock in or work harder, even though I was already glued to the screen and sometimes skipping lunch. Of course more tasks kept coming, and my feelings of concern kept rising. And more “so and so is no longer with the company” type announcements. My daily meetings turned from cute coffee chats and brainstorming sessions to “what have you gotten done yesterday and what will you do today” type conversations. Everything I said was written down and I’m guessing reported somewhere. I kept bringing up concerns. And every time I did, I felt I was disliked a little more. This was when I knew I needed a backup plan. I kept trying my best, but eventually it got to the point where deadlines were not being met and there was little to no empathy for me not being able to do it during work hours (likely because most of the team works after hours to get it all done). But I can’t work after hours. I’m completely spent. I don’t recognize the person I’ve become. This job has made me pull away from my family and friends. I have no energy after work or even on the weekends. I have notes in my planner from the past six months that actually scare me because my mental health has never dropped this low, even after my sister died. There is simply too much to do. You will essentially be a manager but called a specialist. You will also do data analysis and market research. You will build campaigns from scratch and fight for the things you need every step of the way because organization is all over the place and projects often fall through. At times you might find yourself spending a whole week on a campaign only to realize that the Ecomm team doesn’t have their end tied up or the merch team is having supply issues, or a last minute change has shifted the whole thing—All these issues could be easily accounted for if there was a director to oversee the team. The workload is impossible and fly-ins are common. But you are still expected to “be mindful of deadlines”. It’s far from a properly functioning marketing team, even though every single person is working harder than I’ve seen at any other company. Recently I made the mistake of bringing up my concerns one last time and admitting through tears that I cannot continue with this workload. I was told I might not be a good fit for the company and then ambushed me the next day with a meeting with HR that I wasn’t expecting and a choice: sign a performance improvement plan or create an exit plan from the company. I put in my two weeks and now will become another eerie announcement on Monday. I am moving on from my niche and my career goals to begin again somewhere else. TLDR: The company will love bomb you and then abuse you. Go elsewhere with your talent.