Pros
- The people you work alongside really do make it a better place to work (although be prepared to attend a fair few of their leaving drinks in your Wowcher lifetime as the retention struggle is real) - They host after-work drinks on the roof sometimes which is quite fun (although these are very sporadic) - Generous commission structure for sales (although they move the goalposts to unlock this constantly) - They give you the chance to express your ideas to drive the company forward (but then ignore them) - Great job for grads looking to get an insight into the industry (although you will receive next to no training)
Cons
Clear your schedule, this could take a while - Salaries are a bit of a joke. Trying to get a more realistic figure from them in your salary negotiations is like getting blood from a stone. - For sales, the commission structure can be extremely generous and people do make a lot of money when they hit target, although next month you'll have a bunch of completely different KPIs you need to hit to unlock the commission you have already earned. It's a bit sadistic. You ever seen Saw? - On the topic of sales targets, hope you like to keep things unpredictable. Your targets will be "based on how much money that sector made that time last year" oh yeah, and if you hit last month, we are going to up it this month too lol. - The job itself will be vaguely related to the job you applied for. Oh you want to be a designer? Yeah okay Photoshop this hoover on a different background. You wanna do sales? Lol. Admin. Copywriter? Fill out a spreadsheet to determine exactly how many 32C leopard-print bras you're allowed to sell compared to the other 35 ridiculous options. WHY LIE??? - Training. Lol jk. There isnt any. - Anything that has been suggested to help Wowcher perform better as a business will either be completely ignored, or presented by senior management as their own idea months later. Then if yours is one of the ideas that actually DOES get implemented, they'll do it at a really convenient time and roll out the test phase when the company isn't already really busy and under enormous strain. Like at Christmas. - Complete and utter disregard for the businesses they work with. It's all about squeezing every last penny you can from a company and still expecting them to want to work with Wowcher after they mess them around for weeks and months at a time. - Nothing at Wowcher works, and I'm not just talking about their products. Ask them what happened with their warehouse over Christmas. And how there are clients left threatening never to work with them ever again all year round due to payment issues or some other Wowcher error. It's just a mess. - Let's talk management. I know that there are a lot of managers and senior staff at Wowcher who do work very hard and do try to help people out as much as possible. HOWEVER, I didn't get one of those. What I got was someone who shouldn't be managing a team to begin with. Some people are better at making money for the business, and that's okay. But don't give them a team hahaha oh God it's awful. In a 6-person team she's got through 9 people in the space of a year. She has the worst retention in the whole of the London office and yet no-one is looking into why. It's okay though because I'll tell you. She is often rude to the supporting teams and frequently blames them for her mistakes. Not satisfied with demoralising her own diminishing team, she tires to bully other teams as well. She will steal your deals even though you're in her team! She will micromanage your every move. She will delegate tasks such as training onto other members of her team despite it not being remotely part of their job description. She will call you all away from your desks for meeting after meeting about nothing in particular, or more accurately, the same thing you just had a meeting about this morning. Her approach is not consultative at all. She simply does not know how to engage her team and when she feels she is losing their respect, she tries to claw it back using fear. I honestly don't know how she is allowed to work the way she does and I think it is a terrible reflection on Wowcher as a company for allowing her to do so. Although I guess for anyone applying for the role, with this one at the wheel there will always be a vacancy to fill!! - "Internalise, don't externalise." This is actually a great way to work, especially in sales. It is excellent advice and I really really wish that management would implement it into their way of working instead of simply saying the words. The irony is strong with this one. - I have never known a workplace to have so many separate rules for separate people in my life. You can't work like that. It's total chaos. Everyone needs to abide by the same rules or it doesn't work. Totally demotivating. - I feel like the London Human Resources function should also get a special mention just for being the least human HR rep that ever walked the earth. Despite all that you've read above, I really enjoyed my time at Wowcher for the most part. The people really do make it a fun place to work, but at the end of the day you're looking for a career, not a social group. Make the right choice. Choose life. Choose somewhere else.
