Refinery29 reviews

3.1

40% would recommend to a friend

(191 total reviews)

Philippe von Borries

35% approve of CEO

18% positive business outlook

Refinery29 has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 191 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Refinery29 employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Mídia e comunicação industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

191 reviews
2.0
Sep 15, 2017
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Many people in the company are passionate for what the company does and stand for. Even more so when it comes to the cofounders. They are all deeply caring the mission for women. Not some false pretense under guise to draw people. Company has incredibly strong brand that resonate with certain demographics and it is one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing to achieve in media industry.

Cons

Company is failing to scale and grow up healthily. In fact, its stagnant and hurting tremendously. This is leading to talent drain of capable people on middle management level. Which leaves less capable managers in the middle level therefore further negatively affecting non-managers. Its a vicious cycle. Majority of this stems from poor upper management on executive level. There have been a number of executive changes but more changes are needed. Especially true for cofounders. That said, its hard to hold anything against them because these are caring folks who spent almost of all career as entrepreneur and building a 100 million dollar business. They didn't spend decade jumping through corporate world going from company to company learning how things work at scale and what's effective or not for certain situations. Cofounders are doing what they believe is the best. But their best unfortunately is not good enough because they aren't growing fast enough to keep up with growth of the company and what it is demanded of executive level at 100 million dollar companies. Cofounders need to consider what Google did at certain stage with Eric Schmidt. Hiring an experienced CEO to run the business while cofounders release operational duties to focus more on what they are exceptionally good at. Being brand visionary, champion of women's causes, coming up with creative experiments. After certain time when cofounders have matured further with executive skills and experience, return to take the helm. Just like Google.

1.0
Jul 22, 2016
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- Some great people - Forward thinking

Cons

- Overall, it's a high school popularity contest - The most incompetent managers are hired. My manager was probably hired because she knew "the lingo" and the founders thought she was legit. - The majority of the managers lead by intimidation - Some of the people that are promoted into management positions are unqualified and inexperienced. I'm sure if these new managers were to leave R29, they'd be knocked back into their jr level roles. - Benefits are "meh" and not much time off. - Pay is not equal across the board - some people were breaking their backs making peanuts while others are grossly overpaid to just "hang out and talk the talk".

2.0
Jun 5, 2020
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

great colleagues, fun office atmosphere, the opportunity to work in media and get paid to do it but....

Cons

Vice/R29 own all your ip. they don't respect your time or your personhood. They especially prey on BIPOC and LGBTQ staffers to use their time and ideas for content and then refuse to promote them until they quite or are fired. They repeatedly tell you that you should be "grateful" for what you have, when in factt they should be grateful to have YOU. This place is rotten from the core. I give it a year until Vice just kills the brand. Vice is also bad! Digital media in general is a big ol' scam.

Viewing 31 - 33 of 191 Reviews

Glassdoor has 283 Refinery29 reviews submitted anonymously by Refinery29 employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Refinery29 is right for you.