Universal Music Group reviews

I’ve never written a Glassdoor review before, but after my brief and startling experience at Universal Music Group (UMG), I felt compelled to share. I was employed for just three days before being abruptly fired without a clear, justifiable reason. I left a job I enjoyed, excited for this opportunity, only to find that the reality fell far short of expectations. The interview process was adequate, but in hindsight, there were red flags I should have paid more attention to. I had heard about the difficult reputation of my prospective manager from multiple sources, but I chose to give the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, this was a mistake. While UMG promotes a culture of communication, what I encountered was a team filled with cliques, where inclusion felt performative at best. One of the most shocking aspects was the lack of transparency around working hours. I was informed that the role required a 9-6 schedule only on my first day, despite having multiple discussions prior to my start date that it could have been disclosed. To make matters worse, I was later told that one of the reasons for my termination was leaving at 6 PM – the exact end time I was given on my first day. This was despite the fact that I checked in with my manager both days I was in the office before leaving and was clearly adhering to the guidelines communicated to me. This moving target of unclear expectations eventually culminated in arbitrary reasons for my dismissal. The onboarding process was largely unorganized, with the majority of my welcome coming from individuals outside my team, who were much more friendly and engaging. The manager I reported to seemed more concerned with trivial matters, like his personal office environment and how it looks, rather than providing guidance or setting clear expectations. Despite my efforts to adapt, I was consistently met with resistance, feeling isolated and stonewalled. The culmination of this came when I was fired in a Zoom meeting, during which the SVP and my manager revealed that they had harbored doubts about me from the start. This stemmed from my request to push my start date due to illness – a reasonable request that I was willing to support with a doctor’s note. Ironically, my manager had requested that I contact him via personal cell instead of email, adding unnecessary complexity to an already frustrating situation. There was no opportunity for improvement or feedback through a performance improvement plan (PIP) – just a sudden termination. This was incredibly disheartening, especially considering it had only been three days. I later discovered that this role has seen several people cycle through it in the past year, and I was essentially hired to do a job that realistically requires more than one person. The workload was excessive, and many of the upper management either canceled or skipped check-in meetings entirely. The one exception was the virtual operations team member, who was dedicated to onboarding me properly. Everyone else, unfortunately, was either disengaged or unavailable. I would advise anyone considering this team to proceed with caution. While I did have positive interactions with the IT and benefits teams, as well as some digital staff, my experience within the People, Inclusion, and Culture department was shockingly toxic. The misrepresentation I experienced – from the team culture to the workload – is something I’ll be reflecting on for some time.