AOL Reviews

Former Employee – worked at AOL as a contractor for more than 3 years

Pros – Interesting, challenging large scale projects.

Cons – Large corporation politics, lack of clear direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Software engineers aren't disposable commodities. You get what you pay for.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AOL full-time for less than a year

Pros – Big brand, Wok culture and best industry practices

Cons – became old, concerned about future business opportunities

Advice to Senior Management – To look for latest enhancement to live in the competation

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AOL

Pros – good benefits, decent salary, good colleagues

Cons – terrible middle and senior management

Advice to Senior Management – stop changing the org chart every 5 minutes, look after good people, kill the middle management layer that stops anything getting done, theres always triple the managers than people doing the work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AOL

Pros – Interesting and fun people work there;
good perks;
interesting industry and dynamic environment;
Looks good for prospective employers on the CV

Cons – AOL are getting left behind in a space where loads of cash is available for very few players.
A new plan is always round the corner...

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AOL

Pros – Good work life balance
Salaries (at least for newer people) were good
good benefit package (including partner benefits)
bonuses were usually paid out

Cons – Way too many middle managers who had no idea what they were doing
Unreasonable expectations from management
Known in the market as a company with it's best days behind it

Advice to Senior Management – My main advice would be to hire the best person for each open job, regardless of whether they came from Google or not.

Current Employee – been working at AOL

Pros – Initially the lack of any sort of process is liberating as you feel like you can just do whatever you like. I also quite like what they've done with the canteen, and the free breakfasts on the 1st of the month, free drinks on Friday nights - they're trying.

Cons – Total lack of process results in hopeless mess where nothing gets done, ever, and no one has any idea who to go to for information. Culture of regular layoffs also means people have realised that knowledge is power, so they either deliberately misinform you, or just don't share.

Advice to Senior Management – I don't really have any advice, I guess I'm drawing my own conclusions abotu the 6 months I ahve spent here, and in light of the fact I am highly likely to get canned in the next round, I'm looking elsewhere.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AOL

Pros – Very talented and skilled employees. Good atmosphere within and between teams. Good work-life balance. Brand name. Will from managemet to push thinking ahead and to embrace new ideas (eg Blue Ocean Strategy, NetPromoter Score, SixSigma,...).

Cons – Decision making process dysfunctional (tendency to leave situations "as is"). Parent company not giving enough autonomy to subsidiaries, thus difficult to take critical local decisions in timely manner. Rather flat organisation means lower opportunities of promotion.

Advice to Senior Management – Have the will to take bold decisions (already the case in some way). Refocus on employees (a lot of talented people) and give them more opportunities to contribute and to imagine a future within AOL.

Current Employee – been working at AOL

Pros – Everyone loves a comeback and the strategy and future plans are sound. Now comes the exciting part of execution. The user base is still huge and the products, ok not all of them, but most of the key products are excellent and are moving forwards. There are smart people here and honestly some of the dead wood needing clearing out.

Cons – Change is hard and sometimes the process is a little frayed. So don't always expect your hard work to be noticed and rewarded.

Advice to Senior Management – Be honest, stay the course but don't become over-reliant on documentation, listen and talk to senior staff more.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AOL full-time for more than a year

Pros – Culture, Products, Clear Mission, Resources, Benefits, Salary, Bonus Structure

Cons – In Need of Rebranding to the Public

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at AOL full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Have loads of freedom to do your thing, great people around

Cons – Dwindling revenue, newer companies growing much faster

Advice to Senior Management – Be nimble and work like a startup

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company