Former employee1.0/5
Downwards spiral and questionable ethics
Pros: - Teams tend to have excellent expertise, which is not a given in the agency world. You find some true experts at ESV
- Because it's run so cost-consciously, it will take a while to go under
- Colleagues are nice and it's a good place to learn, especially early in your career
Cons: - The management of the business has questionable ethics (I witnessed freelancers and suppliers not getting paid)
- The agency is in a slow downwards spiral for a number of years
- The company is bootstrapped: low pay, no investment in anything
View on GlassdoorAccount Manager· London, EnglandFormer employee3.0/5
Slow but Steady
Pros: - Client focused structure (you work around the client not channel, gives you the opportunity to work across different channels, not instantly, depending on your luck and account you are assigned to work on)
- Exposure to different areas (because of a moderate number of clients with moderate budgets, you have the chanse to do everything, including client communication and a bit of upselling, which is a good opportunity of trying yourself in different roles and seeing what you really like if you are starting your career)
- Hiring with No Experience (the management now gives priority to foreign language speakers, which is a fair management strategy, since ESV is an international agency)
- Fast progression (compared to bigger agencys you can be promoted within 6 months and then in the next 6 months - which was not the case for everybody with the COVID 19 and prior issues within the company)
- Clients are relatively interesting to work on - many e-commerce businesses from different industries ranging from retail clothing to construction
- Interesting team-work approach with sharing the same client (gives you the opportunity to work with different people and see who you are better vibing with)
- Quick promotion to the manager position (you can experience the manager role very early in your career)
- Flat, partly transparent structure (you get to communicate with everybody, see how different teams are working, if you are proactive in that sense, e.g. working as an account manager I got the chance to see how the creative team was working on marketing/branding strategies)
- Friendly, inclusive team (people are making long-lasting friendships, people who leave the company are not forgotten, they visit quite often when going out for drinks or nights out)
- You get to learn things mostly ad-hoc on the job which is not bad if you are enjoying working under pressure.
- Proactivity is accepted but not encouraged.
- Good crisis management during COVID 19 when more people were leaving to other companies (nodoby was made redundant and somewhat fair management decisions have been made)
Cons: - Workload (gets very busy at times and there are not enough people to share the workload with - partly due to the COVID 19 situation when the company tried to keep the people and moderate the hiring) However, overall the workload can get crazy with normal amount of people and there is a lot of work people are voluntary committing to just to keep the performance up.
- Overtime is not paid, there is no limit to where you should overtime and when not, you choose what you do with your time.
- Overtiming culture - you choose what you want to do with your time, but when everybody around is overtiming it sets the standard for others (sounds a bit communistic, but people are working hard, being motivated by something which is not really money, probably the credit of competence and a faster promotion to a new title)
- No work and life balance (nothing to make the load easier, used to be Friday drinks or breakfasts, early friday finish, you don't work 8 hours with lunch included- you work 9 hours with lunch included)
- Blaming culture exists (friendly team but carrying some blaming culture habits, everybody is expecting everyone to move fast and altough some mistakes are overlooked, you don't always get to be told about your mistakes it in an ethical way - privately, might find somebody talked about what you did directly with a higher manager as opposed to you, but this depends on each person's culture and not everyone you work with is like this)
- Quick promotion to manager (the bad side is everybody suddenly starts giving orders, thinking a new and fast achieved title is something that allows them to change their tone in the way they speak to others who are lower in this "game" - few people promoting leaders culture, more people following boss behaviour; Quick promotion doesn't mean you are suddenly becoming a lot more competent, and this is when you might be giving orders that prioritize your opinion to other people's opinion which is not very diplomatic and always right.
- Unclear communication (you are not being explained at all times what your role is and your proggression might depend on company's financial situation with this circumstance being a bit masked around other reasons; since everybody is new to the manager role and there is a lot of work to do, not all communication is good - communication is a self-taught skill, but it would be good to have it incorporated in the team culture)
- Management is really relaxed and might easily overlook any promisses they made to you.
- No real training, people are training other people but there is no real training budget or time alocated for training, no learning new features - if you have time to learn about them on your own during work hours you can, if not, then you should learn on your own at home, which is not ok but apparently everybody thinks it is)
- Micromanaging (depending who you work with, people migh be focusing a lot on small things instead of working on the strategy, which can make everything move very slow), details are important but overtalking about details kills everything,
- Initiative sometimes can be seen as threat - because everybody gets promoted so fast there is an extent of competition in the team that limits your freedoom in doing anything.
- Not enough senior people - everybody is learning and it would be better for people to accept they don't know everything, than to pretent they have to know everything, this will help reduce the pressure. Some people know more, some less, if you get to learn more you can share if you are asked, but if nobody asks you, you just work on your craft and hope you land a great opportunity later on. It would be nice seeing people sharing what they know with the team in regularly organized sessions, it won't do anyone any harm.
- Things are moving slow, there are a lot of barriers in your progressions because you have to start with a lot of grunt work you should do before you "achieve" the merit of doing more strategy.
View on GlassdoorFormer employee2.0/5
Not As Advertised
Pros: Working remotely, ownership of client relationships, health Insirance paid in full by employer
Cons: No Career Development, Small Client Base, if one client is lost your job is gone with it. No 401k they give you company stock that is dependent on the CEO selling the business and even that is a long shot. Very small team (4-5 people).
View on Glassdoor· London, EnglandFormer employee5.0/5
Best Agency to learn!
Pros: Worked at ESV for +5 years and can honestly say there's no better independence agency! You can start here with no experience and the learning curve is impressive, there's always opportunities for you to grow. Team and tech are probably the best things, everyone getting along is mandatory for a great atmosphere. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to start a career in Digital.
Cons: No cons, you just need passion for data and analytical mind, otherwise this is probably not your place
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