Good First Job, Small Things Add Up That Make People Leave.
Pros
The company provided a great deal of exposure for me and was a great first job. I enjoyed most of my time at ISN, until the last year or so. The thing that kept me at the job was both the pay and the people I worked with. ISN does a great job of hiring fun and intelligent individuals. Fast growing company that has potential to continue growing for many years. Great encouragement to work in team environments both internally and externally, strong training process that builds on repetition or processes and procedures, great environment of teaching employees to critically think, exposure to working on large scale implementation of an online database website which enables clients to access information quickly. Compensation structure is great! Most recruiting is directly out of college and employees receive great pay, benefits, and bonuses. The higher up you are the better compensation you receive (as with most companies). Many recent graduates would love to be paid the way ISN pays its employees. Company culture was pretty good also. Most people are recruited straight from college and are eager to learn/compete/produce for the company. Employees come from similar backgrounds and enjoy spending time together outside of work. Pay is very competitive and bonus packages are also very rewarding. Additional incentives of happy hours, events, and company trips are items that keep employees happy and looking to achieve goals. Executive Management is great! CEO delivers everyone's paychecks, President takes an interest in each employee, and all Executive Management members are very involved in events, meetings, processes, etc. Company participates in a matching program for donations to charitable foundations. The values and ethics of upper management and the employees is something that I truly liked at ISN.
Cons
Due to the rapid nature of growth, the companies management team has only been managed internally (meaning they haven't been a part of another company to see how others manage). The culture of management is to micromanage. The understanding of "this is how it is" and "this how it has always been" is something that is instilled in the employees. Moving away from the standard process is something that isn't easy at ISN. Regarding positions and changing teams, during reviews you are asked to list the teams you would like to be part of and discuss how you believe you would like to progress through the company. This does help management understand what you want, but the decisions of team changes doesn't seem to take into consideration the employees thoughts. People are rotated to different teams on a yearly basis, and sometimes more frequently. If you are on a team for longer than 1.5-2 years you are a unique employee at ISN. They like to have people on different teams to be exposed to different industries, but this does cut the ties with relationships and knowledge regarding accounts/industries. The raise/promotion process doesn't seem to have a rhyme or reason behind it. Some people get a promotion simply due to seniority on a team where others get promoted based on their relationship to people in management (or at least this is what I noticed). Additionally, perception is everything at ISN. Even if you complete your work, think of additional ways to benefit the company, assist others, never miss a deadline, etc. but are perceived as someone who isn't taking it seriously or not completing work you will have a black mark against you while at ISN and it will be tough to progress through the company. Many people I worked with were passed over for promotions and positions due to the way they were perceived, even though they had done as much if not more quality work than the people who received the promotion/position change. The upper management positions are filled by founding members of the company and they do not seem to want to leave a good they they have. Middle Management positions are being filled with people who started at ISN roughly 4-6 years ago. They too are in great positions with high responsibility and great pay. So management positions really are only opened up when a new industry is developed or current industry teams have grown and the need for a new spot becomes available. Again, these are my experiences and may not reflect that of others.
