Great products, decent pay/benefits, antiquated office space/business practices, resistance to change and innovation.
Pros
HL is a good place to kickstart a career, especially within the music industry. The people are generally nice and the full time benefits are solid. Hours are flexible especially if you're part time or a mother. The office space is clean and in a nice location outside of downtown. They are slowly working to improve company culture with work outings, volunteer choirs, quarterly meetings, mid-level management promotions. Opportunities for travel.
Cons
HL is a deeply imperfect workplace that needs to make some major changes. Cliques within the office, unmotivated/unprofessional behavior, outdated software, lack of opportunity within certain areas of the company; all these are issues at HL. Sometimes women are addressed with an old school mentality and cut out of the "boys club." Because a music major is required of most employees, so sometimes communication strategies and office etiquette are lacking in new employees and professional development is not offered. Old school business structure without key components of a modern workplace: a solid HR presence on-site ( beyond 1 person), a sizeable dev team, social media team, marketing team, more mid-level management roles. If you don't have a job title that's been around for 40 years, your work isn't always seen as legitimate and you're more likely to be overworked/underpaid.
