16 Feb 2025
Clear
Part of M&C Saatchi Group
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Clear Reviews
3.8
66% would recommend to a friend
Damian Symons
86% approve of CEO
66% positive business outlook
Reviews by job title
3 reviews
2.0
6 May 2022
Cookie-cutter work, hostile towards D&I
Former employee, more than 3 years
London, England
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
Some pleasant and impressive colleagues. Good central London office location, if that matters to you. Perks like free lunches twice a week.
Cons
Work is very rinse-and-repeat, recycling old ideas for new clients. Dated methodologies, little-to-no investment in training and development opportunities for staff. Requests for attending training, industry events etc. are not treated equitably whatsoever, with only a few staff able to monopolise all the budget and resourcing. Work-life balance for more junior staff is non-existent. No recognition or compensation for excessive work obligations. The business doesn't bat an eye at resourcing people at 150%, it's just considered the norm. If D&I matter to you, give them a hard pass. The business talks *a lot* about "fitting in", and how important it is for everyone to be a part of the mould. If you want to know what "fitting in" looks like at Clear, take a look at the company website and team page. Anyone who deviates from their norm is speedily squeezed out from the business. They only care about retaining an extremely narrow demographic of consultants, and make no effort to be inclusive towards anyone else. "Collaboration" is touted as a core value, but in reality the work is intensely individualistic. You're expected to get on with accomplishing everything yourself, and treated as a hindrance if you ask for someone else's opinion. Attitude and treatment towards freelancers is appalling. Delaying payment of invoices is a norm. No consideration given to their time and obligations, they're just there to plug a gap and move on. IT support is managed centrally by MCSaatchi group, and is incredibly inefficient. The act of getting reliable, working equipment and software to staff to do their jobs is a major issue.
4.0
9 Apr 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
-Great clients, interesting challenges and a big impact in the world of marketing/brand strategy given the size of the firm -Nice, genuine people with an increasing focus on people development and culture; The firm is not very diverse, but there is a genuine focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and some real investment in changing that -Flat structure with lots of autonomy; You can truly be the master of your own destiny -Related to the above, lots of ability to shape new approaches, methodologies and IP -Lots of opportunities for directors to build their brand via events, IP development and thought leadership -As a Director, you're very involved in client challenges and problem solving; not just on business development and pitching
Cons
-Very lean structure which lacks traditional admin support (office managers, executive assistants) meaning a lot of time is spent on non-productive tasks -The team is very Director heavy, so lack of junior support means you spend a lot of time on lower value tasks (i.e. editing charts, drafting discussion guides etc.) -Lack of strategic focus; the flip side of autonomy is that the firm seems to be moving in many directions at once -Sometimes the feeling of an identity crisis between being a strategic insight agency and strategy consultancy (based on who's doing the work and how the client understands Clear's sweet spot)
