Overall good, but crazy employer. Glad I was hired. Glad I left.
Pros
You learn a lot, very quickly - even as an experienced leader. To this day I still use the skills I learned from this role. To this day I still use my projects here as career-making references. A large agency like Edelman, and Edelman specifically, is a fantastic place to learn and get moved through the ranks quickly early in your career. It's a great job just out of college and I wish I had done that when I graduated many moons ago. I'd limit your time there to a 2-3 year window and then look to go in-house or a non-agency role before you get sucked in. The people are generally very good. In terms of comms agencies, they're very smart, capable, and they work with integrity. Richard Edelman is a very good leader. He's lost a little bit of touch with the people who actually do the work, but that's mainly because the company became so large. I liked working for him.
Cons
My overall take is that I'm glad I joined. And I'm glad I'm gone. I wish I put a self-imposed expiration date on my time there. It's a great place to grow and learn. But for the first time in my career, I looked at what the SVPs and EVPs were doing and the sacrifices they appeared to be making and thought to myself "I don't want that." I'm very ambitious and to not want to get promoted is a strange place to be a sign that Edelman and I weren't a match for longer than, say, two years. A VP role is difficult - you're expected to work on high-level strategy and then put your nose to the grind stone into PowerPoint. While its fun to do both, you often get overruled by senior leadership or swamped with work that an executive leader doesn't typically take on. I was amazed how a company that prides itself on being new and innovative recycles so many of its own ideas. And god help you if you make a mistake on a project -- there is an undercurrent of gossip going on that you can get sucked into. Sometimes fact-driven gossip and sometimes not. While that's true at any company, it's definitely true here. When other people told me that, I dismissed it, until I was sucked into that vortex myself. In short, at this company, you're only as good as your last PowerPoint. Also, unless you get on a retainer with one or a small handful of clients, expect to be at your desk at 5 pm, thinking you'll go home at 7 / 7:30, only to then find out a biz development opportunity is going to get assigned to you and you have to be ready to assemble and lead the team the next morning. This is a hard role if you're single and have responsibilities at home. And good lord I couldn't imagine being a parent at this company. Would I ever get to see my kid? Maybe WFH due to Covid has changed that?
