Pros
It's the largest, most relevant company of its kind. Glamour, specifically, is a very sane place to work. The women are competent and friendly and for the most part, I really love the work that I do. It's nice to be able to have a creative job and still feel the safety nets of a big company. We have great benefits and a pension plan and lots of things that other people in creative fields don't have. The company can have a reputation as being a tough place to work. It's true that things like look and style can feel like they matter at Conde Nast, but that doesn't actually bother me. We work at fashion magazines! If we were rocket scientists, we'd have a difference set of criteria. When I was younger these attitudes, along with the cut throat nature of the business, could bother me, but now I think it's thickened my skin and made me a better employee.
Cons
Most of the big magazines are within the company, so I do feel like you never really get to "start over" The upside to that is that you can move magazines without moving retirement plans, etc., but it also means that if you feel like you have a dud experience at one magazine you worry about HR having bad feelings about you forever. I am also a bit worried about the industry in general, and think it's important for anyone working in magazines right now to have some opinions about what they might do if they lost their job. Also, the access to mentorship is really on a case-by-base basis. If you are lucky enough to have good top editors who like you and want to bring you along, you're golden, but the company isn't going to make an effort to do that for you. You really have to make those kinds of opportunities for yourself. If you don't have someone advocating for you, the bottom rungs of the totem pole can be very lonely, intimidating places.
