Nov 4, 2019
Refinery29 reviews
3.1
40% would recommend to a friend
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).
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191 reviews
1.0
Aug 21, 2019
Recommend
Business Outlook
Pros
NONE, WHATSOEVER. DO NOT WORK HERE.
Cons
Seriously, it is not what it appears to be from the outside. It is not worth your health and sanity lol. It is a complete and total mess. Q4 layoffs and restructures two years in a row. I would venture to guess more coming this year, if history is any indication. Zero direction. Extremely inefficient across all areas of the company. Process constantly changing, without informed research, implementation, or training. The people in charge have no idea what they are doing or how to run a business of this size. Insane turnover. "Managers" with zero management experience. Promoted just because you put your time in, not because of skill - leads to terrible and/or lack of management. Many are extremely rude/mean to each other over email. Hostile work environment. The company is totally hypocritical - touts empowering women but treats their mostly women work force with clear disrespect and disregard. EVERYONE is miserable. Everyone wants out. It is a sinking ship. The only positive is the people. Sure, I have learned a ton. I am confident I can handle whatever my next job throws at me. But was it worth years of being underpaid, overworked, lied to, lead on, manipulated, MANY tears, and the many effects of stress on one's life? NO. I would advise my best friend against working here, so I want to extend that to whoever may be considering a job at Refinery29.
4.0
Jul 22, 2019
come flourish if you hustle, and you better work (ru paul voice)
Anonymous employee
Former employee, more than 1 year
New York, NY
Recommend
Business Outlook
Pros
- if you are a go-getter and proactive and nimble then this place will help you grow professionally. The reach of the brand is huge and despite revenue pressure, the brand is important, edgy and a tastemaker in the industry. You get to literally build everything and learn as you go. Our work is actually good, our creative is cutting edge and we need to remember why we won over the hearts of our followers in the first place. I only feel it now that I have left, how I took the brand for granted. We did cool work, and was the underdog and risen out of it. Just look at companies who legitimately have copied so much of our work in experiential and the aesthetics. If you're on the client-side, you are talking to higher-ups in the industry and have so much exposure. These are your contacts ladies and gentlemen, take them wherever you go next. - the fact is, if you've worked at an agency or any huge corporation, you realize the number of things you can get away with working here. You want to launch something? Prove it and get the buy-in and chances are they will support you as long as you take full accountability and ownership. Yes, there are people here who have their own agendas, but let's be honest that 80% of other companies are the same. And if you are rolling your eyes reading this, the truth is you probably have not been truly involved and a stakeholder with the executive teams at other companies, because no brand is perfect and there is bureaucracy in most companies. The C-suite or management here will listen to you and take that meeting if your pitch is good, there's not layers and layers of things like my last job. - the people that work here have so much god damn heart. Either they are in it for the mission, or they are in it for their coworkers. If you do something great internally, just remember it’s the people and the brands you touch that will feel it. If you don’t let the jadedness blind you, there is room to make a difference and people will be appreciative and will actually slack you and say “thank you for doing that” and “I appreciate you” There are a handful of people that left to other jobs and came running back, because they know they got it good here but the grass was greener for them
Cons
- the things that people complain about here are sometimes crazy and just shows how inexperienced people are and how entitled they are. Granted, the company has done a bad job of holding firm on things so there’s also a lot of breeding bad behavior.... but sometimes I just wanted to blurt out in a meeting "are you here to work or complain and last time i checked, this is work and it's not about your feelings, nothing is personal and its for the business!!" - once you climb up that ladder, it’s hard to stay positive because there’s a string of people who I swear their mission is to get the next wave of people to be more and more toxic. They complain and complain but they don’t want to leave/ probably because they can’t get jobs elsewhere and their managers are too nice and attached to let them go. ADVICE - let them go and hire new people who actually want to be here. They are poisoning so many people who didn’t even experience the same things as they did. - you are earning every penny you get, there is no coasting. - media is not known for big money, firm budgets and free lunch. Go to an app for that, because if that’s what you want, this is not the industry for you. If you want to feel stable and work a standard 9 - 5, go work for the big pubs but then you’ll also hate yourself for other reasons (like, 99% of the staff look the same and playing catch up) and then boom, layoffs across the whole damn industry... because we are in the same industry, genius. - your experience is dependent on your manager and how much clout your boss has and if he or she actually believes in you and not just managing you because they have to. If that’s the case, you better work that damn tush off and mingle with other departments and hope to get put into a different department
Viewing 55 - 57 of 191 Reviews
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