Pros
Beautiful spacious office and free lunch through corporate Seamless account. In your first couple of days, you will be given a great deal of motivation and confidence. Also, the team in Israel is always very helpful and friendly to collaborate with.
Cons
Let me start by saying I am not a disgruntled ex-employee. I got fired earlier this week, and I saw it coming because about 90% of us were getting fired these past few days, so I started looking for another job, and landed it on the very day I got axed. So I'm good and I am not angry. I am only being honest here without embellishments, so please take my words seriously.
Listen to all the negative reviews you see here. Those are not angry people on a mission to destroy- they were all honest. When I started at Hometalk NY less than 6 months ago, I ignored the bad reviews on Glassdoor. Figured they were just angry people. Over time, I realized they were completely accurate without exaggeration. Oh, and the good reviews you read here? That's because we were all forced to write good reviews in an effort to negate and bury the bad ones. Take some care into reading those, and you will realize how fake they are. There were many more up, but little by little we started taking them down because they were unethical and good people kept getting pulled in and burnt in part cause of those positive reviews.
Anyway, there are indeed cult-like vibes. Management is indeed volatile. Wonderfully qualified people are indeed terribly overworked and underpaid in NY standards, more like they are being paid Israeli wages. And promises of any degree of leadership that are made during the hiring process aren't kept, and I'm not only talking about my personal experience.
Way too many times (over 7 times in less than 6 months,) I've seen people being heralded for their accomplishments one day, then fired the next week. At first I thought they were crazy, then as genuinely good people kept getting fired, I realized it was management. They keep firing people without cause, and the employment contract states they are allowed to do that.
Most people got fired within their first 2-3 months of employment, and yes, as many reviews indicated, there were others that got fired within 2 weeks. Management keeps saying the company is in high-growth mode... don't fall for that. Than again, maybe it's true because they are also always in high-firing mode, dismissing employees after squeezing the most out of them during the honeymoon phase. I noticed that each time someone is fired, it is as though their names are never to be brought up again- almost as though they never existed in the first place. By extended logic, that went to show that we were all expendable.
Despite being a startup, there are very cold vibes that are similar to those stereotypically associated with the corporate sector. I wouldn't blame it on the employees though (not that it matters cause most of them were fired.) This is also on management for creating a terribly tense culture in the NY office.
Look, I won't stop you from working with Hometalk. But please have a backup plan in mind, because even the most talented and kind people get axed out of the blue. Do not make significant changes in your life while depending on Hometalk- such as moving and such. Seriously. Read the negative reviews, and proceed with caution.
