Content farm with cult-like culture - Technology Executive Trend Hunter Employee Review

1.0
May 5, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Loose structure, relatively easy work, low baseline of talent so it's easy to shine. If you are willing to drink the kool-aid or flatter leadership, you can personality your way into a job for as long as you feel like biding your time. If you don't care about building a meaningful resume and just want to work at a place that can be fun and feel kind of like a mini high school, then by all means go ahead and work here. Just make sure you don't stay more than a year or two so that you can leave and get your career started properly before it's too late.

Cons

Low pay, a narcissistic culture, a very smoke and mirrors business model (you will be told it "completely changes based on opportunities!") and almost no meaningful training for the real working world. Aggressive gaslighting is everywhere. You need to turn off your BS detector to last in this place. You will be exposed to an incessant barrage of spin and manipulation and be able to swallow it (or pretend you do convincingly) daily. Any legitimate feedback or complaints you might leveled will be met with weird double speak, dismissed with some abused stats "99% of all our employees are 400% satisfied so you must be wrong!" or "our site has 999 trillion pageviews, it's one of the most succesful in the world!". This comes from the top where it's been perfected as an art form, but the rest of leadership has all internalized it as well by this point. It's hard to say if they have actually started to believe what they parrot now or have just figured out it's profitable to fall in line. 'Leadership' are mostly 30 years olds who have no real work experience outside of the bubble and would struggle to get more than entry level jobs in a real company. Their titles are kind of a joke but have managed to stick around and not challenge things too much so they eventually get promoted to comical levels "Chief Imaginary Officer" etc that make them unhirable elsewhere.

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Trend Hunter Response
6y
I'm sorry you did not enjoy your experience. A very small proportion of our roles are related to content, so "content farm" would seem less relevant. Our c-levels do average 35, and our entire team is relatively young, though they have achieved terrific results, doubling the company every 18 months since 2014. We do not have a Chief Imaginary Officer, as our c-level roles are functional (after CEO, there are six c-level leaders, heading: sales, operations, marketing, client services, insights, and culture) Those are relatively standard roles for a 70 person company, though Chief Culture Officer is a bonus role we've had for several years, to curate a culture we are all very proud of. For the last 3 years, attrition among. those 1+ years has been 5%, which is very low in Toronto, and keep aspiring to improve.

Explore other reviews about Trend Hunter

5.0
Mar 29, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

+ Culture - The company has a cohesive culture with lots of perks, including weekly (free) beer parties, monthly "fun day" adventures, and lunches together. + Training - I refined my skills at Trend Hunter through the training program and ongoing coaching. + People - I am still friends today with the people who were part of the same internship long ago. Also, many people come back for the weekly beer parties. + Office - The office is a hip urban loft in Toronto's fashion district (Queen and Spadina) + The WORK! - Trend Hunter is all about the cutting edge, which means you get to write about art, design, pop culture, fashion... and even cat videos. + Start-Up Culture - It was really fun to be part of a start-up, working with young people in a collaborative place. Much different than the old-school corporate places I worked before.

Cons

I really liked it, so I don't have cons.

1
4.0
May 23, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

nice and extensive balanced work life

Cons

the updation is a necessary

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