Pros
Firstly, everyone's experience here will be different, largely dependent on the team that you're on. This isn't to say people who left a negative review are wrong, but it's important to also contextualize everyone's experience. Your experience here could be amazing or terrible depending on which team you're on, and I was lucky enough to be a part of a close-knit team. Additionally, your time in the office is often celebratory and vibrant, especially when there's a big event that the company is celebrating. You feel the diversity of the staff whenever you're there, and personally, this was something I really appreciated and enjoyed. You can learn a lot about other cultures when you're part of a company that is this diverse. Some staff members are a little bit less friendly than others, but there's a sense of "we're in this together", again, depending on the team that you're on. That said, there's awful people everywhere, so ApplyBoard isn't unique there. You'll be tested here, but the problem solving skills and the resilience to pressure you'll hopefully develop will, in my opinion, be worth it. Then there's the cons ...
Cons
There's a few to be listed here. For starters, this company is wholly dependent on outside forces, specifically geopolitical sentiments towards migration, that can change within weeks, as it did in 2024. This company desperately needs to diversify its product and service offerings if they hope to stay afloat. This is something that rather than acknowledging, the leadership seems to have been resistant to. Secondly, there's a lot of turnover. This doesn't only refer to their layoffs (both silent and en masse), which itself may have cut the company's employee base by at least 60% over 2 years, but also in terms of leadership. This company hemorrhages executive leadership unlike any other company I've seen. It doesn't exactly help morale when staff see leadership whose entire job is tied to the success of a company that's desperately swimming against the tide, get pushed out of the company for "low performance". Some even just quit on their own accord. That's not good, to say the least. Thirdly, there will be no rewards for those who show loyalty to the company, because that loyalty will not be reciprocated. Long-time staff have been removed as easily as new hires for no good reason other than apparently the employee being seen as "incompatible with the company's long-term vision". What is that vision, exactly? These employees should be allowed to at least know that. Finally, there's an issue of transparency. Simply put, there's isn't really any. There are meetings where leadership is upfront about some of the challenges being faced by the company, but that doesn't seem to provide any sense of what can be done to really help the company stay above water for the sake of everyone's career, other than "if we keep working hard, we'll be okay". To be fair, there are probably a lot more cons, but you'll see that in the other reviews. The problems I want leadership to address are endemic, and these issues are causing a rot from within that ultimately ruins people's lives as there are few life events more devastating than a lay-off. All of these issues, one way or another, are tied to the company's core problem; a complete lack of a long-term vision. There's a belief that the current political climate is a storm that can be withstood, but it can't and, apparently, won't. They lay people off to slow the bleeding, but ultimately, they're still losing blood. You also can't grow without staff to help you grow, particularly in sales and marketing, many of who are either being laid-off or being completely burnt out. Where does this leave the company?
