Instrument reviews

3.1

59% would recommend to a friend

(79 total reviews)
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Laurel Burton

13% approve of CEO

17% positive business outlook

Instrument has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 79 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Instrument employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

79 reviews
3.0
Jan 29, 2016

A great marketing agency

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Inspirational and competitive. Working at Instrument will push you to achieve your greatest.

Cons

The company is setup to promote great design, not necessarily foster great development. Strong bonds have formed among long-term coworkers that can make social integration difficult. Be ready for high-school style cliques.

1.0
Nov 12, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cool client portfolio for Portland, Oregon and very beautiful office

Cons

Instrument claims they're "different then other agencies" but it's not true. They're only focused on monetary growth without creating any infrastructure, training process or agency wide practices for their employees. As a producer, I found it impossible to understand how to succeed. The executive directors are technically in charge of managing the production discipline on top of finding all the new business and managing all of the other leads on their team which basically made it very difficult for them to provide support. I was told that I would be given training in my first month but I was thrown into the fire, left alone to guess what to do and then later completely torn apart for my mistakes in an "informal review" which was degrading and not constructive. Overall the management team at Instrument is just the leadership teams friends and folks who have worked there the longest but they're completely unqualified to manage people. The way employees are thrown around to different teams without their own opinion taken into consideration and against their own will makes for a completely disparate experience. It's a sink or swim environment and it matters if you're popular and who you know.

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Instrument Response
5y
We really appreciate this feedback and take seriously that your experience felt unsupported. We are focusing a lot of energy on training with a roll-out of an internal Career Progression Framework for direct managers and employees that will provide current employees a detailed and specific growth path for themselves, no matter what business team they are working on. Thank you again for your feedback and your time with us.
3.0
Sep 12, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- I've met some of the smartest, most talented, and most caring people at Instrument. - Generally very flexible with time off/sick leave. - Competitive benefits. - A lot of employees are asking for and actively working on creating meaningful change within the org.

Cons

There's a BIG disconnect between leadership (specifically those in executive leadership) and those of us working with each other in team/client environments. This has created a lot of tension between leadership and everyone else and I can't see things changing unless there is some change in leadership. I can see that they are trying to understand what the issues are and how to solve them... after all, technically speaking, Instrument is better than a lot of other agencies that claim to care about their employees. But better doesn't mean anything if the standard for "better" is so low.

Viewing 19 - 21 of 79 Reviews

Glassdoor has 97 Instrument reviews submitted anonymously by Instrument employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Instrument is right for you.