Pros
You have a chance to make some friends and meet interesting people.
Cons
During the several years of my employment, there were many glaring issues with the company. It is extremely cliquey and everything it advertises about itself is mostly just self-PR and untrue: - One of the company's pillars is the fact that they care for their employees. Completely false. Employees at account exec level are rinsed of every drop of work possible. Often forced to work overtime because of a toxic "agency life" mentality that trickles down from upper management. Mostly everyone ends up burnt out after the first year and is not given space, time or resources adequate for recovery. Turnover is massive because of this. The issues have been flagged many times to upper management and the senior leadership team. Despite the considerable numbers of people complaining, no major changes happened. However, AxiCom does make a lot of noise both internally and externally around Mental Health Week. These efforts are at best shallow and have never addressed any of the real staff needs. - Career path is a dead end. Often times it favours specific people, with promotions and pay rises either being extremely delayed, not transparent, or extremely low in the context of work output. Expect to be doing the same type of work just for more clients as you advance in the PR role – meaning you do not learn any new skills and you just work longer hours. You will be told that it's a great learning and development opportunity. This is also false, you there is no evolution whatsoever in your role, especially if you start your career there. Either you get lucky and end up working with one of the few line managers that actually care, or, in most cases, your needs will be trumped by the overall business development/revenue goal. Expect an obnoxious amount of busy, useless work, that will earn you shallow recognition – “Great job sending that email and using your words!”. - Do not believe anyone who talks about flexible work as a benefit. You will be stuck to your laptop for most of your working day. - The lack of good HR astounds, every single year this was an issue and it never got fixed. Not a place that actually values employee insight or wellbeing, especially when it comes with the cost of actual and meaningful change. - The fact that the agency is getting so much recognition and prizes in terms of "best places to work" is truly ironic and insulting to the many people that sacrifice their nights to create most of the business impact. The public image of AxiCom is wildly different than the reality of working there. - Very poor understanding of DE&I. Often times unnecessary and problematic comments are made within the company. These issues are treated very lightly and as simple “jokes”. Again, the lack of actual HR has led to this type of behaviour considered normal, and in the worst case the only consequence for senior leadership was a slap on the wrist. The lack of DE&I infrastructure is painfully obvious if you check the website or have a closer look at the leadership.
