Year Up United reviews

So many cons. The pay is slave wage. The teachers, advisers and mentors are kind of useless. So you get set up with an internship but nobody knows what you will do on the internship until you get it. Until then they just teach you things that will never be used at the job. Kind of a waste of time right? Everybody in the program gives vague general advice about careers that you can find on google. A lot of politics and you see people being favored which lowers morale for the students. When you get the internship its a mixed bag. Sometimes you can be doing a lot and your team needs you or you can be doing nothing your whole time there. Why year up sets up students like this? I have no clue. Leads to tons of hopelessness. At the end of the day it's like a recruitment agency trying to hit numbers disguised as a non profit. Many year up graduates I know went back to the same old jobs they had before the program.

• Clueless senior leadership • Decisions are made without full context and staff are told to “make it work” • The executive director and senior director both need attention and to hear their title spoken OFTEN • Even though Year Up is a feedback culture, the feedback given to senior leadership is used against you and your remaining time is made unbearable—hostile and toxic work environment. I have witnessed (former) colleagues ignored, mistreated, and pushed out of the door. • If you don’t appease senior leadership, they will give you the silent treatment. • Ill-equipped Individuals are promoted and then are responsible for managing processes AND people, neither of which are successfully executed. • Decisions are made and the population that the organization serves is not considered and the students suffer severely as a result. • The mission is often sacrificed to “make the numbers” and as a result, some students are sent to corporate partners and are not setup for success. It was once stated by senior leadership, “sometimes you have to sacrifice one or two for the good of the group.” • Staff members are kept on staff after committing acts when students are fired for less. • Inconsistent expectations for staff and leadership as people decide to work from home multiple times each week. • Performance reviews are laughable when individuals who have never done the work tell you how to do the work.