First Media Reviews

-Highly inexperienced, ineffective, and incompetent management. Most higher and mid level staff has no prior professional experience in digital media and it shows. Many are young, and others are simply immature. They also struggle regularly with communicating their expectations and feedback, due to a lack of previous experience and a lack of concern or desire for typical industry standards. Many of these managers are attempting to learn how to do their jobs as they go, so be ready to be subjected to numerous short-sighted decisions that can and will change frequently. Problem solving is done in an extremely haphazard way with little regard for how it will affect the productivity and well being of the staff beneath. For instance, managers noticed that they were getting several bad reviews here on Glassdoor. Rather than heeding people's advise, they "strongly encouraged" employees to leave reviews that would "cancel them out" (side note: if you read a review here that says "they can't think of anything negative", be very, VERY hesitant to trust it). -Rampant nepotism. Approximately half the management at this company is related either by family or by romance. This is coupled with an apparent aversion to individuals with actual experience and expertise in digital media, which is illustrated by the fact that no one with previous professional media experience has lasted longer than one year at the company. -Toxic and destructive management culture. While the company claims to want to "inspire women every day", the culture was built and is powered by male ego. Your good idea will be dismissed, only to be repeated a few months later by someone else and embraced with open arms. Get ready for lots of "mansplaining". Unfortunately, while there are women in some management positions, many have picked up several bad habits from these men. If you've never seen a girl mansplain something to you, you will if you work here. And while these managers will never hesitate to criticize you relentlessly in front of your peers or the entire company, don't dare offer them feedback on how to manage more effectively, lest you be accused of insubordination. -Rampant unprofessional behavior. While a casual and relaxed work environment can certainly be a positive to a certain extent, there have been multiple instances of conduct by management that crosses the line into unethical and abusive, including shouting, threats, misleading or outright false statements, gaslighting, and insults. -Tense and anxious work environment, fueled by the fact that management likes to get rid of employees without warning for reasons that are either unclear, arbitrary, or simply not articulated. Employees will be told that their jobs are safe time and time again before having the proverbial rug yanked out from underneath them. And when asked why certain individuals were terminated, management will frequently give different reasons each and every time. -Disorganized corporate policies and structure. Management struggled with imposing coherent policies and procedures throughout the entire year I worked there. To this day, the workflow for employees at this company is constantly changing, making it difficult to obtain the resources needed to complete projects and wasting countless hours with unnecessary frustration for all parties. -Compensation and benefits at this company are objectively low. As an employee, you will frequently think to yourself "I don't get paid enough to deal with this." When asked, management will always use budget as their excuse for not paying you what you are worth, before using their other perks as justification for why you should not expect to be paid a typical industry rate. Of course, their budgets would be less constraining if they wasted less time and money making easily avoidable mistakes. Meanwhile, these same managers are quietly making salaries that are twice or even eight times as much as the people they supposedly "don't have budget" to compensate properly. -The company claims to value work/life balance. However, if you expect or wish to advance in any way, be ready to work long hours late into the night meeting unnecessarily tight deadlines. -Maintaining positive attitude and morale at this company can only be described as a Herculean task. The HR team certainly does what they can with certain events that they throw, but maintaining that positivity is virtually impossible for all the reasons outlined previously. Worse yet, if and when you do finally "check out" emotionally for the sake of protecting your own sanity, you will be asked and lectured frequently about your "attitude" by these same managers who lack the concern or self awareness to actually fix the problem. -Needless to say, turnover rate at this company is atrocious. As opposed to Glassdoor, it would be more appropriate for this company to post listings on "Revolvingdoor". -The company has a real issue with retaining diverse staff. There is absolutely no racial diversity in the upper management of this company, and the retention rate for employees of certain minority groups (Black, Latino, LGBTQ+) is objectively and significantly lower. -The company makes very little effort to actually live up to it's slogan of "inspiring women every day". They fail at this twofold: both in their internal corporate culture as well as the content they produce and release. Given the issues outlined above, it's not difficult to see how this company falls prey to so many of the pitfalls and harmful practices of today's male-dominated corporate culture. Meanwhile, one only has to examine the content on their pages to see that their strategy for "inspiring women every day" involves teaching them to cook, keep an organized and well decorated home, raise children, and put on makeup. This is extremely unfortunate, since the world is sorely in need of content and companies that generally inspire, empower, and uplift women, especially in today's sociopolitical climate. -Perhaps worst of all: this company has, on multiple occasions, and continues to each day, provide cover whenever certain favorite managers act up, act out, or engage in any behavior that can be described as problematic or unethical. Too many times have I and my fellow current and former employees been subjected to unacceptable conduct, only to bring our concerns to the necessary parties and have them met with "oh, that's just how [X person] is...". I'm not sure if I can say which managers get to enjoy this special cover or why, so I'll simply refer back to my earlier comment about nepotism. TL;DR: This company is a master class in poor management and illustrates all the various ways that nepotism is as ineffective as it is unethical. If you're desperate for work or fresh out of school, feel free to take a job here. Just be sure to use it as a stepping stone to something better as soon as humanly possible.