Centaur Media reviews

Very little induction/training given when you start - just mandatory GDPR and a few PDFs about payroll pensions etc. Hybrid working model involves dragging people into the office twice a week+ for no real reason other than management think it's nice or something. It really is pointless coming to the office when you spend the whole day alone at your hotdesk, no colleagues in or around you, struggling to find a meeting room so you can sit on Teams/Zoom the whole time. Hours advertised with job description were reasonable but this does not happen in practice. If you start on an early shift at 6am you'll be expected to work through to 6pm regardless, or given so much work that it would be impossible to get it all done if you left on time. There is zero work/life balance as a result. I found my time at Centaur very chaotic and stressful with deadlines and briefs changing often and seemingly at random. Speaking to other colleagues, I know I was not alone in struggling with the atmosphere and culture here. Also, I have to mention that the pay was terrible compared to elsewhere. In the current climate its inexcusable. I don't know how people afford to stay.

I worked on an editorial team on one of the Xiem subscription titles so I can only speak for that part of the business. I actually think conditions are probably better for some of the non-editorial staff (i.e. the sales teams etc.). I held the lowest position on my team and despite 8 years (though 2 of those were on fixed term contracts) of very hard work (and repeated requests for a promotion) I was never given one. Instead they promoted a 22 year old who had only been on my team for about 18 months. This girl had very limited intelligence and I often had to correct her mistakes. Now, you may think I'm just being bitter but I'm actually relaying this story to make a point, Centaur Media is not really a media company at all, it now positions itself as a consultancy. I tended to focus on things like editorial accuracy, as a researcher I thought that was my job, but the girl who was promoted focused on building relationships with clients and that is why she was promoted. A media title wouldn't expect editorial staff to form relationships with clients (unless they were also sources or something) but this idea was constantly pushed on my team, despite the fact that we were pretty much always under-staffed and over worked. Managers repeatedly told us that we needed to coddle clients and seemed to want us to cater to their every whim. I should point out that Centaur is not a small business, each client had there own account manager and there was a customer service team so there was no real reason for us editorial staff to have more than passing interactions with clients but the company wanted to pass itself off as having "expertise" and decided to drag the editorial staff into this endeavour. Things like accuracy, writing ability and critical thinking (which, coincidentally, are the things I'm good at and thought I'd be able to use in this role) are not respected or encouraged by management. As a result, if you are looking for an editorial position, do not apply to this company. If you're applying for something like a "Researcher" or "Editorial Assistant" it is very likely that either your contributions will not be respected and rewarded by the company, or that you will find yourself expected to do consultant-like things rather than just acting in an editorial capacity. This company also has what I would say is an above average appetite for trendy corporate BS. Sometimes this can work in employees favour (they do things like wellness days) but other times it's just really awkward. For example, at one point the CEO insisted on holding a series of breakfast meetings so that he could meet all the company's staff; yes, everyone in the company had to meet with the CEO. I think he thought that this would be an opportunity for employees to share concerns or ideas (he's really into Kaizen) but, of course, no one was going to say anything critical to his face so the only people who spoke up were yes men. The company often does pointless stuff like this unironically and without insight. It can often be a bit hypocritical as well; at one point I came to the realisation that I am probably neurodivergent, my line manger had me on a PIP (basically because she thought I had a bad attitude, I didn't, I am almost certainly autistic) and this had given me an extreme burnout. I explained to her that I was probably neurodivergent and that this could be causing some miscommunication between us, she did nothing; this was during a company wide Neurodiversity Awareness Week. In summary, it might be worth working at Centaur if you can take advantage of perks but, if you want an editorial career go elsewhere.