This job is highly stressful and poorly paid (£11/hr) for the amount of work expected from employees. You will be expected to churn out well-researched study guide articles for high school students at break-neck speed. This isn't to mention that the content we produce is the backbone of the company, for which we get no writer's byline or royalties. Despite this, the upper-management treat the content writers with disregard on good days and contempt on the bad. Communication and management seem to be their worst qualities. I've personally experienced managers urgently messaging me on weekends to do work and also not responding to my messages/emails for a whole month. The upper-management is condescending and absent-minded. Staff receive little to no training beyond wiki-how style info guides during induction week, despite the nature of the work being highly specialized. They don't offer even marginal pay rises and often pay salaries late. Too much of my time was spent chasing after my salary to avoid being in rent arrears. This company used to be a fresh start-up yet, in the years it's been active, hasn't outgrown its teething stage. They completely lack business direction, asking content creators to work on a new content direction every couple of months. Writers often have to redo their study guide articles only to find out that they need to be changed again, sometimes backtracking to their original form. In some cases, these new content directions were not communicated to us untill months after the decision was made. The higher ups have finally decided to take on an SEO only focus, completely ignoring whether or not their content will actually help students (their target audience). This means they've now slashed a huge proportion of the company despite promising job security, as their employees are expendable. They enjoy making grandiose promises but never hire beyond a 3 months contract. I have worked with them for 1year 1/2 while bouncing between contracts. The job turnover is so high, that my work accounts have been repeatedly deleted by mistake because they've mixed up the employees who are leaving with those who are staying. The company lacks transparency and professionalism. They adopt a veneer of being open and caring, when they only care about the volume of work you produce with little regard for your health. Working for this company resulted in a mental breakdown that I needed time off to recover from. I regret not paying attention to the red flags after they hired me. They didn't respond for 3 weeks after telling me I was hired, missed my start date and took 2 months to get me a measely 3 month contract. StudySmarter is a rudimentary content mill under the guise of a social enterprise. They care as much about their student audience as they do their content writers.
