Pros
1. The mission - it is a fantastic mission and it truly is at the center of everything at Year Up. Everything I've been a part of here, even if it's not directly advising or instructing students, I can see directly how my work contributes to expanding opportunities for the young adults we serve.
2. The people - this is an incredible team to be a part of. Just about everyone is brilliant, caring, creative, passionate, real team players, and 100% committed to the mission. Including in ivy league schools I've attended, I've never been part of anything like this before.
3. The potential - Year Up's model has real potential for transformative scale and impact, and leadership is committed to fulfilling that potential. There are ambitious plans for growth here with commitment to consistency in quality, and notably that growth extends to both direct service programs AND broader systems change. Put that all together and you're part of a force that can really change the equation around opportunity in this country.
4. The commitment to people development - This kind of follows from all of the above, but there is a real commitment here to staff development, and tons of opportunities for growth. This happens on a systemic level (in the form of financial support for professional development, PD plans, etc) and a personal level (in the form of individuals taking the time to mentor and develop colleagues). The rapid organizational growth creates a lot of opportunities for taking on new challenges in your role or outside of it.
I also think leadership here has a real commitment to core values. I've seen some discussion on Glassdoor about diversity in leadership and hiring. Year Up definitely struggles in this area, as most companies do, but I've been heartened by how seriously everyone in the organization takes efforts to build a diverse team. Most of us only see the person hired at the end of a search and not the process that led to that hire; whenever I've been part of that process there has always been a very serious consideration of diversity and efforts to attract a diverse pool of applicants. I think it's to leadership's credit that at the end of the day, the best candidate is selected and there are no shortcuts being taken to achieve diversity goals. There is certainly a lot of work to be done here, but I see a very sincere effort being made. And I see that same depth of commitment to all of the stated core values.
Cons
1. Pace is insane and everyone struggles to keep up. The best you can expect is a choice between working long hours and letting balls drop; most likely you will be doing a little of both.
2. Growth brings challenges and everyone is struggling a little to absorb all the changes in the organization. Even though none of the important things about Year Up are actually changing, it can be stressful and sometimes it's hard to sort out what's changing and what's not. Communication sometimes lags behind as things change really quickly.
