Pros
Reasonable salary offers in comparison of the relatively inexpensive city Abercrombie is based in.
Cons
Regardless of the rebranding, Abercrombie is still the same. You can change the CEO for better PR, but when upper management is still the original employees, how can you expect it to actually change? Abercrombie’s management structure is very cult-like. I was continuously shocked at the lack of empathy and selfishness of upper management that I witnessed both to myself and others. If one person on the team doesn’t like you, you are now the enemy of everyone. With frequent layoffs, giving into this cult structure and ganging up on your teammates is the only way you can stay at Abercrombie. Upper management will step on anyone and everyone’s neck to get you on the layoff list instead of them. It doesn’t matter if you’re an assistant or a senior designer. I cannot disclose which team I worked for given that they make you sign documents stating you will never say anything “negative” about the company when you leave, but work life balance is not distributed to every team. I heard that was how it was on other teams, but know you could be put on a team where the norm is to come in early at 8 am, and stay past the expected time of 6 quite frequently. If you don’t come in on “work from home” days, you’re not seen as loyal like the rest of the team, welcome to the layoff list. The entire team will make sure it’s known you aren’t a part of the cult and coming to work will be terrible every day. My genuine advice if you plan on working for this corporation in the long haul is to keep your head down. Don’t try to become friends with your coworkers, and don’t tell them literally anything about you. Lots of new graduates come into Abercrombie and make this grim mistake. Anything and everything will be used against you. Know that if you want to be here in the long haul, you will have to throw other people under the bus to get to the top, and you will have to live with that. Save your work privately, you will be cut off entirely as soon as you are let go and you will lose everything. You will have nothing to show for your time here, and nothing for your portfolio. I accepted this position hoping for industry connections, and don’t even feel as though I could count on anyone there to be that. You would be much better off designing somewhere else, especially if this is your first job out of design school. I wish I went literally anywhere else.