JOHN MCNEIL STUDIO Reviews

The executives have difficulty saying no to clients. JMS has been struggling with new business and branching out from its two major clients which results in bending over backwards for work. This puts stress on the mid and entry level employees to do high intensity/volume work at the last minute. You might be asked at 4pm on a Friday if you can work until midnight or perhaps the whole weekend - not every day but frequent enough where the long, last-minute hours are not sustainable to keep employees long term. Middle management isn't great so you feel like your hours/workload aren't being monitored, regular reviews and communication with supervisors are rare and you don't feel like your time is valued. Wherever you work in the advertising industry long nights and big project pushes are always going to happen, but at JMS these pushes at peak seasons can be so brutal and last so long even light summer workloads and fantastic time off perks aren't enough for potentially 6 weeks straight of 50-75 hours of work. Think carefully if an ad agency is for you.

For an agency that promotes itself as a small, progressive studio, it can be rigid and is very concerned with hierarchy and titles. Big egos often hang up workflow unnecessarily and make things overly complicated. Communication is terrible across the entire studio and there is zero consideration about making sure everyone is informed of changes. Lack of "team effort" mentality. Timelines for projects are unrealistic leading to regular weekend work, long nights, and lots of employee turnover.