Pros
If you hate your current job and need somewhere to go and have no choice, OR if this is your first job to get your foot in the door in the tech industry then it’s not so bad. Culture used to be great even after being acquired by cision but after being acquired by j2 it has definitely been on a continuous decline. I do think some of the benefits are decent and j2 is making an effort to address some employee concerns and improve culture but they have a LONG way to go… It’s a cool product - email is huge right now and they have an interesting strategy to remain in the small business space… but that’s about it. Work/life is good but only because leadership doesn’t care and no one knows what you’re doing. I mean in a way as long as you get your work done you have a flex schedule. I am hopeful that in 5-10 years I do think iContact could be in a great position. For now - I’d stay away if you have a choice. Don’t be fooled by the marketing magic of their job postings.
Cons
Management is a huge con. They need to hire management from outside of iContact and bring in management professionals who realize the importance of communication/transparency/collaboration/so many other things. Leadership is awful with communication. None of the employees are aligned and a lot of the time they give marching orders and don’t share info and it’s not very collaborative. Personalities aren’t the best either… there are a lot of difficult people to work with and if you’re looking for a place with genuinely friendly people who want to see you do well and help you and develop your interests and make you feel heard… this is not the place. Management also expects so much but doesn’t support you. There were massive layoffs and even as people continue to leave management loves to keep teams lean and just add in responsibilities to whoever remains and eventually burns them out and gives no recognition or appreciation or even acknowledgement. And then if you don’t deliver, you get blamed. Pay is also below pretty below average… Also again if culture/employee engagement are important to you, stay away bc it’s non existent here. You’ll notice that by how little of important HR plays a role in the company. There is no growth or advancement opportunity either so you’re kind of stuck if you want to explore other avenues. Leadership makes you feel like you have a say by making you do all these brainstorming sessions or sharing opinions etc and put all this time and effort in coming up with ideas… but it goes nowhere so you basically wasted your time. If you want to be excited about where you work - this is not the place.
