-Pay: you're underpaid compared to most other agencies. A 60k minimum salary is great, but you can get 70k minimum at Directive. The benefits, most of which were in office based, are nothing to really brag about. This is a tech field, you will get great benefits almost any agency you go to.
-Hours: You ready to track every waking minute of your professional life? If you're not, you will assuredly have problems with management seeing you as 'under performing', no matter the quality of your output. Get ready to put in more time in creating an out of office plan than the time you will actually enjoy while on vacation. Seer fully expects you to be available for clients and coworkers at all times. I can't stress enough how relieving it was to be able to delete the chat programs off my phone and be able to actually enjoy an evening after 8 pm.
-Culture + People: Cultish, cliquey, and largely unaware that there are in fact other SEM agencies that exist (and that surprise: some do things a LOT better). Seer makes you feel as though they're the only good company in the world, which is so horribly false. I mean, the company barely even provides training, and where it does it is far from comprehensive. The staff is also primarily fresh from college with limited experience in the field, which is really why I wanted to highlight the lack of training. You've got kids with no idea what to do learning it all on the job with little to no support from the company itself. The weekly FYF threads are nauseating - low effort praise and cheerleading all aimed at creating a false appearance of being happy. Though I worked there pre-pandemic, it was not at all uncommon to see folks in the office past 8 pm on a Friday night trying to finish up their work for the week -- and this was an expectation of Seer. Oh, and finally, if you DO have a problem with another coworker then too bad. If they're well liked, have been there for over a year, or some how got into Wil's circle, you're boned. No one will ever take your side.
-Professional Growth: Again, there is no real training at Seer or room for side of desk projects/training. If you want to develop in a specific area, do it on your own time. They won't really help you at all. This also makes it difficult when looking for promotions or pay raises. Most leadership positions at Seer are also held by individuals who have been there for 6+ years. This creates an insular and occasional stubborn culture that is unwilling to accept any sort of change. It's a giant echo chamber.
-The Work: If you have any interest in SEO beyond content marketing then Seer is not for you. The core of the business is content strategy and development and calling it SEO. Maybe 7 employees can write schema. Maybe 25 can use Screaming Frog efficiently, despite having one of the best guides on how to use the tool. There are also no standardized approaches, reports, deliverables, etc. You're constantly making it all up as you go. This then means that clients get a mixed bag in terms of performance. In essence, no two clients are getting the same (or even similar) output.
-Management in general: There are a few truly empathetic managers at Seer. Then there are a lot more that have been there for 6+ years, without any other job experience, that have moved into the roles of managers, and are unwilling to take outside suggestions. These folks are part of the 'in group', or Wil's favorites, and if you've got one as your manager I'm so sorry.
-Wil: Wil has done an absolutely incredible job at a few things.
1) Surrounding himself with sycophants - I never saw anyone tell him 'No' while there, or even pushback when a bad idea was presented. In fact, if you tried to message him and used an email that wasn't either bulleted, 150 characters long, or did not contain a TLDR you were going to run into issues with the dude. Apparently, he thinks he does not have enough time to sit and read something if it's not formatted correctly. Insane.
2) Projecting an image of selflessness, when the dude is actually pretty petty and brutal to work with. While there, he made a pretty big deal about not buying a Lambo and instead providing pretty meager bonuses to his staff based
3) Creating a hostile work environment by having very clear favorites and pitting staff members against each other in the name of 'progress'.
4) Building a public image of Seer. I mean really, before working there, I was convinced they were doing exceptional things. They aren't. It's all on stage.
5) Seeming Innovative: This is kinda the same as above, but Seer came up with a few good ideas a few years ago. PowerBI to analyze PPC and SEO data is awesome. Looking for wasted spend is awesome. This is the extent of the innovation at Seer. But they'll tell you about their homebuilt keyword rank tracker and tell you that it's exceptional and unrivaled. They'll tell you about their BI + Data team and say they're incredible, and those individuals are, but the output is nothing unique. Beyond that, new ideas or novel approaches to problems are not exactly welcome. Essentially, if Wil doesn't think of it or if one of his favorites doesn't say it, whatever project or idea you have will fall flat on its face.
I don't want to just bash Wil though. His big picture thinking is what excited me about working at Seer. He has excellent business acumen and can be a pretty likable guy. It's just that the face he shows the world on stage is very very different than the one you see in the office, and the company itself is stagnant and overly focused on the image they project vs the way they actually treat and take care of their employees.
A final note: over the last 2 years the company has experienced insane turn over. Individuals who had been there for 8+ years are leaving in droves. Why do you think that is? If the company REALLY treated people that well, you'd think they would stay for life.
