I would never recommend any aspiring youth development professional to work here. This place is rotten--and the other reviews are exposing SEO for the work environments they have been allowing to fester for years. Very little are happy to work at SEO, and it shows in larger team meetings, and interactions among staff. Everyone is always, 'great', and 'love to work with my kids', but inside..they are probably looking for the next job to hightail it out of there. I've since left, but I keep hearing that people keep disappearing...both in College and HS Scholars and in HS, some have gotten fired in the past couple of months--both under one manager, who is newer I believe, and probably speaks more to their incompetence as a manager than whatever was the reason they were both fired during the same season. On top of that, they continuous lie about the reason for why staff have moved on. Some people get the carpet rolled out on departure, others just get the boot. Scary stuff. Sends one message: get in line, or get out.
HS Scholars felt as if you always had to watch your back and do your best to always disarm people so they like you. Some people are great it, others don't play the game so well, and that seems to determine the fall of promotions, opportunities and etc. at SEO. The amount of fake conversations, praise and rah-rah in team meetings was tiring, and I was sick of watching it. No one seems to actually enjoy it, but they play politics to survive--or be the next face in the sky who's on their way out.
HS Scholars wears you out--the hours 10-7 p.m. are too much and are the minimum of what you'll work. No work/life balance, and you always feel like you're at work. Most staff are out of there 8-9 p.m. some nights, and they work hard to produce good programming for the Scholars. But again, some rise to the top and others don't. Some of the managers in the office seem to pull their weight--others seem to lean heavily on their staff to make them look good. These are not just observations, gossip runs rampant in SEO, so everyone knows the deal in some way or another after some time.
To be honest, I wouldn't look twice at SEO after seeing all these reviews.
