No soft skills in soft side marketing - Marketing Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Jul 29, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Visionary executive leadership team/CEO and amazing people who passionately believe in the mission of the company and education/technology. Truly wonderful products that enhance the lives of customers. Outreach programs that successfully research exactly what will have the greatest positive impact for the end-user (this is the only company that cares enough to do this valuable work).

Cons

Inefficient management and communication practices, senior/middle level manages up (so top executive leadership doesn't get the real/whole picture), no 360 degree feedback program review process, continuous revolving door and loss of top quality talent even when talent is promoted, bad execution and untimeliness of poorly planned initiatives (the ideas are good, just not planned through to the end before being rolled out), unnecessary micromanagement/bureaucratic management practices/procedures/policies, unprofessional conduct by middle level supervisors (directors) towards direct reports.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

2
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