Get experience for your resume for ~6 months and GET OUT FAST!
Pros
They give people with less experience a chance to get something on their resume so good to start out. If YOU make sure to set boundaries for a work/life balance, you can more or less stick to it. (Although I get plenty of calls and emails after work hours, unless it's urgent, I rarely if ever respond and it's never hurt me or any production.) Usually easy to jump from project to project (if they have something open, which they don't always.)
Cons
Most disorganized company I've ever worked for. There's no transparency about anything. There's no communication between anyone and with so many EPs on one show, it takes forever to get an answer on anything. They give us no budget to work with which makes finding talent and locations extremely difficult. Production changes their mind on everything last minute or does not get approval from Network until last minute so 90-95% of what I work on doesn't get used for this reason or another. The last minute changes in schedule are often due to mistakes or miscommunications on production's part, as opposed to anything else, and it makes it almost impossible to get anything done. The only time I can ever get my supervisors on the phone is when they're upset with something I've done... which is only ever because of miscommunication BECAUSE I can't reach anyone. There are no team meetings or calls so no one is ever on the same page. It genuinely feels like they try to make it harder to get your job done and you can take 1 step forward and then they push you 3 steps back. Definitely no diversity in front of or behind the camera. They will take advantage of you and "ask" you to "help out" on shows you're not contracted for and end up balancing different projects you didn't sign up for because other producers are stretched too thin on their multiple shows and need help, without being willing to hire someone else for that separate show. But they won't compensate you for that and only give minimal pay raises after a year (if you fight for it). They once told me that even though I did such a great job, the following day would be my last day of work because our show wrapped much earlier than it planned to and I had to wait a month to even get an interview for another Sharp show, despite my glowing recommendations from other Sharp employees from my previous show. I was left unemployed and without any income with no warning. After joining a meeting about unionizing at Sharp, I learned my position, among others are clearly underpaid, and only as I left the company at the end of 2022 did I hear employees will start getting health benefits in 2023. We also never got paid for holidays or sick days, so was never guaranteed a certain amount of hours a week, but hopefully that will change with the addition of health benefits in 2023.
