So first of all, based on some of my experiences, I am apprehensive of potential retaliation from management for writing this review. This felt important to write, however, because when I was considering offers, I could find very little direct feedback about the design team at Bullhorn.
To start, around the start of the year, I worked on a team made up equally of men and women. At the time of this review, I don’t think there are any women left on that team. Management styles and behavior seem to make this a toxic environment for a lot of people.
During my time at Bullhorn, management appeared to act in manipulative, condescending, and even dishonest ways, while also seeming to act very differently in front of higher ups. I experienced members of management gossiping about direct reports to their peers, and other negative, potentially demoralizing behavior.
The really unfortunate thing about Bullhorn is, from what I can tell, upper management believes middle managers over IC employees every single time — so if someone chooses to foster a toxic, politically stressful environment that seems to impact female employees most significantly, he or she can spin each employee’s departure and each misstep as a totally isolated issue unrelated to his or her own management style, and the same roles can be rehired again and again.
Aside from what was in my opinion a tumultuous, emotionally manipulative environment, there isn’t really anything redeeming about the work. Many projects are victim to poor execution and bringing up concerns and suggestions about timelines and quality really don’t historically lead to improvements (on the design team specifically, you may get knocked for not having a “positive outlook,” which can obviously demotivate team members who care a lot about their work). There’s also a lack of genuinely experienced senior level talent, so many roles don’t have mentors or people to learn from.
