Animalz Reviews

**I didn't originally want to write a negative review of working at Animalz. Those already exist, at length, if you scroll down a little. But after seeing the recent efforts to gloss over things (they're experts at that), with people writing glowing reviews of life at Animalz (which may or may not have been a management directive), I figured I needed to reinforce realistic expectations for those considering applying.** - You're only likely to succeed here if you are a content marketing zealot. If you just want to work in the tech/SaaS space, you'll probably do better looking elsewhere. - Very average pay. - Overtime is a constant reality and a carefully masked expectation. Just pay attention to how often they stress that this is "agency life" without explaining what that means -- you're going to get wrung out every week, but god forbid they actually admit how busy you'll be. - They'll act the part of jovial, supportive, millennial colleagues when you join the team. This might continue if you're their type of people, but you'll quickly come to realize everyone is far too busy to really be there for you, no matter how often they say they are. - On internal company-wide calls you'll soon start to see that at least 30% of your colleagues are mildly-to-moderately exasperated and some are barely hanging on. - Monthly production targets for writers are aggressive. I saw people get called out for being 0.5 articles below their quota in a month. Basically, you're never going to have a quiet day, ever. - People constantly miss or have to reschedule internal calls because of how busy they are. You will have to, too! - Taking vacation will stress you out as you'll fall behind with production expectations for your clients. Good luck enjoying time away from your computer. - You're expected to bring your own equipment to the job and there's no home office stipend like most remote-first companies offer. - Churn, churn, churn. Internal and external. - They love to tout their flexible, work from home policy as a major perk of the job, but honestly it feels like a gimmick to squeeze more work out of people and reduce the company's overheads. - Their culture of radical transparency is often taken too far. People are criticized and demeaned in public forums, made to look stupid, and have to take it all on the chin. It was often undeserved and most mistakes seemed to come from being overworked and always feeling like you're behind. - If you're not a good fit or meeting quotas, there's a good chance you'll be out within 3-6 months. Or you'll decide to leave yourself. Either way, this will be announced to everyone else through a casual glossing-over of the situation. - Do yourself a favor and read all of the previous negative reviews on glassdoor about working at Animalz. They went into a lot more detail than I care to, but I agree with 100% of what they said.

Everything else. The pay is substandard, especially for content writers – the people making the actual product Animalz is selling. Content writers with any experience at all can find better pay pretty much anywhere in the current market. Animalz charges clients a king’s ransom for blogs and articles, but none of that seems to leak down to the writers. That gap is puzzling, until you see how many vice presidents, directors, and managers are stuffed into the company hierarchy. Benefits aren’t great if you’re on your own, and they’re terrible if you have a spouse or dependents. The company is clearly operating on the “hope your spouse has better benefits” philosophy of employee healthcare. The workload is extreme and is getting worse. Animalz used to pride itself on quality work, but the writers these days are given such a massive production goal that quality is noticeably slipping. And by noticeable, I mean the clients are noticing, and are subsequently churning. Worse, writers are scolded like puppies if they fall behind on production, and are said to be “letting down the team.” That management is letting down their team of writers doesn’t come up very often. When writers fall behind on these extreme production goals, work is often outsourced to freelancers who aren’t given the time, prompts, or editing support to create quality material. And so standards fall further. They won’t hire new editors at a rate commensurate with increased clients or workloads, and so standards fall even more. They really do have top talent at this agency, but management isn’t providing the framework to support them. And more of these talented individuals are leaving every day, realizing how much more money (and how much less stress) can be found out in the market right now. Onboarding was never great and appears to be getting worse, with little-to-no training on the 12+ apps the company uses. The internal organization is a mess because of it, with information being kept on random spreadsheets instead of inputted into the appropriate app with a funny animal name. All forms of dissent in the company Slack are quashed as “complaining” instead of addressed. Public call outs are becoming more frequent, where employees who made mistakes are tagged in public Slack channels with passive-aggressive messages. Morale is in the toilet, perhaps rightly so, with an everpresent air of “who is being fired or quitting next.” Lastly, and perhaps most disappointingly, Animalz is one of those companies that puts forward a progressive veneer with nothing behind it, like the storefronts on an Old West movie set. Unlimited vacation days don’t mean much when you get fired after taking them, nevermind that you have to find and coordinate freelancers yourself should you deign to take a couple days off. Which is even more frustrating, since some upper-level positions have very discreetly been given four day workweeks. There’s no true dialog with management, company all-hands meetings are basically recitals for C-Suite business jargon performances, and struggling employees are given little help. For a business based around communication, you’ll find none here.