Pros
Benefits are really good. Be wary though, you’ll never use all the PTO because the goals are unattainable and vacation is secretly discouraged (unless you're a favorite). Young culture can be fun at times (Lolla), but ends up resulting in unprofessional behaviors - leadership included. 90% of the people here are pretty cool/down to earth, but cool does not equal good to work with.
Cons
* Turnover. Do a quick search on LinkedIn of everyone who only stayed for 1-2 years. They will scapegoat and say that people needed to leave, which may be true in some cases, but definitely not most. Then, they will try some half-hearted attempt at accepting turnover and claim they are 'continuously changing and improving,' but they aren't. There are a few people in leadership who have been there for awhile due to obvious favoritism and the Founder's inability and unwillingness to hold those people accountable. They have no reason to leave a cushy job. Outside of leadership, there is no one that has been there for any real length of time. See for yourself. * Take positive reviews with a grain of salt, and pay attention to the tenure of those 'reviewers' as most of those people haven’t worked there for longer than 6 months. They essentially force new hires to write reviews while they are in the honeymoon phase. Also, contractors are encouraged to write reviews, so that skews the data on Glassdoor greatly. * Refusal to accept any feedback, whatsoever. If you are struggling, they tell you that you'll be able to contribute to change when you're a top performer. Then, when you do become a top performer, they'll tell you that the challenges you face clearly don't matter because you were able to overcome the obstacles before, and the under performers just need to 'work harder.' It's a Catch 22 that keeps them from reaching the next level as a business. * Lack of direction of any sort: Every 6 months the founder changes his mind and, in turn, the entire direction and structure of the organization. They will make a drastic change on a whim, but not plan out any actual implementation and then to everyone’s 'surprise,' it doesn’t work and he will change everything again. * Lack of professional development. They don’t take anyone's career seriously, even if you work your butt off for them. They believe that they are doing you a favor by letting you work there. * Overall, Swoon has a very negative environment. Its 100% the fault of leadership. They emphasize how open and transparent they are, but I witnessed firsthand the level of gossip that happens at the leadership level. When the leaders do those things, how do they expect everyone else to hold themselves to a higher standard? Leadership takes no fault for anything and claim that employees are negative or were “bad apples” that needed to leave, but those “bad apples” happened to be some of the best people they had. * The only people that are happy at Swoon are people that are either brand new, and don’t know any better, or the 'favorites'. You will very quickly learn that certain practices are enforced for the “regular employee” versus a favorite. If you are a favorite and unsuccessful at hitting your goal, they will literally just create a new job for you that never existed. If you are not one of the chosen few, they will put you on an unobtainable Performance Improvement Plan based on goals that no one else has ever achieved, rendering you with nothing else to do but search for a new job. * It’s all very fake. I worked there too hard for too long. I was someone that came in early and stayed late. It gets you nowhere, honestly. There are too many other great companies to explore. Swoon has nothing to offer except a cool office space, and kegs in the kitchen. Its all cool at first, but not worth the headaches that come with working there.
