The most toxic environment I have ever been in... - Account Manager Aquent Employee Review

1.0
1 Feb 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They hire good people for non management roles but do not know how to keep them.

Cons

Management's communication style is reactive and emotional, things change constantly and you are expected to be a stellar performer when Senior Management doesn't even understand the company vision enough to align properly; things are not given enough time to work so you are constantly changing focus which does not set people up to be successful. Job is sold completely differently than what it actually is. They will change your job description and you are held to something you did not sign up for. Management is a complete joke - you are promoted to manager if you can read a spread sheet and hit your numbers. This place has the 'big fish in a small pond' syndrome and I don't think many of these people could get a job in Senior Management at a company like Google, Facebook etc. but are "big wigs" at Aquent. One manager took a leadership course at Harvard Business School for a week and listed on her LinkedIn that she attended Harvard Business school as her education- just to give an idea of the types of people who work there. There are no formal processes, trainings - you are literally thrown in and are expected to just know. You don't know what you don't know and are punished for what you don't know without someone ever telling you what you should know etc. You are only as good as your last placement. Nothing else matters - even if the account you are working on has a hiring freeze or is slow to move in the hiring process, you are still held responsible and are told you are not performing when most of the situations you have no control over. Most unprofessional company I have ever worked for - manager's had 1:1's out in the open and discussed employee performance with other members of the team. Managers and Senior management engage in gossip and play favorites - some people are more privy to certain information than others, even if it is information about another team member. People are also pitted against each other. If you share something with your manager about another employee, it will get back to that employee and they will be told everything you said. Company claims it is all about flexibility - but the SF tech team was not given that benefit. We were micromanaged to the point of having to put we were in the bathroom in our gchat away message if we needed to step away. We were given dirty looks for going to lunch with another member on the team and for going to lunch at all. Company claims they are transparent but are not - company is not doing well and did a massive lay off in 2016 in 3 different spans and if people expressed concern over their job they were made to feel like they were dumb for asking. Credit % changes were made on accounts during the middle of quarters which affected bonuses.

Explore other reviews about Aquent

5.0
2 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good work was remote and easy job

Cons

No cons that I can think of

3.0
1 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent benefits, but Cigna insurance likes to take the cheap route on everything from MRIs to colonoscopies.

Cons

For "budgetary reasons," my contract work for an industrial automation company got "offshored" to Asia. After working on the same ongoing project for over six years, Aquent didn't respond to my application for work on other projects, and they completely cut me off from company email or anything else. In total, I had worked for them for more than 7.5 years, and this is the way they treat people?! Also, I never got a raise in that entire time. Actually, I went from being a fulltime employee to hourly talent when there was an earlier shortage of work.

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