1) Promotion challenges - You get put up for promotion only if there is no competition in your team and/or you create a certain impression about yourself. Perception is reality.
2) Recruiting - The recruiter I interacted with misrepresented a few critical things to hire me. This happened to a few other people as well. We voiced our concerns and a few things were rectified, but it is best to be careful and speak to the hiring manager directly to verify promises made.
3) Inconsistency in levels - There is no consistency in the level of experience required in certain positions. People with say 5 years experience came in at the same level as someone who has been at Digitas for 1 year after undergrad. Since Digitas can promote people almost every year till the Associate Director level, people with more experience were unhappy with the inconsistency in levels.
4) Less competent managers - Since very young people got promoted and became managers of people, they were not as competent as say someone with more experience would be at that level. In addition, if you are new to the company, the Director (your hiring manager) would not be the one to train you - you would get trained by an Analyst or Sr. Analyst (a colleague). At that level, people are very young and may not know how to train or manage well. In addition, due to 360 review they do a performance review about you, and may reflect their personal feelings in a professional review.
5) Fluff - Sometimes what you talk matters more than what you do. Some people act funny and talk well, hence are well-liked and more likely to get ahead.
6) Heavy workload - Due to employee turnover and periods where client work is more demanding, you end up working very long hours.
7) Monotony in the job - Some work is very manual and tedious. At a lower level you can end up doing monthly reporting, and at a higher level you can end up churning decks which is what consultants do anyway. Hence the work can seem boring and less challenging.
