Pros
Lovely people - they’re diverse, inclusive, helpful, warm and genuine. My immediate manager was a gem and truly cared about my well-being and growth. It’s a good introduction to a sales-related role for fresh grads because the demands of the job are not too difficult. There are KPIs and targets to hit but there are no definitive consequences if you don’t meet them (though this is only fair given that most of your time will be spent on fighting fires anyway). The overall culture is nice and chill, there was a well balanced WFH-WFO requirement and I generally felt that I had good work-life balance.
Cons
Isentia is falling behind and struggles to come up with a product that functions well. The tech is full of bugs and issues and irrelevant features. As an AE, I did not feel motivated to sell to clients something that I did not personally believe in. It made me feel like a scammer almost as I was knowingly selling a product full of issues. Isentia is also trying to wear too many different hats. With the multiple platforms, confusing insights products, data science hub(?), and the customisability of everything, it’s unclear what it’s product offering actually is. There has been an acquisition recently so it is currently going through a transitional phase with new products and phasing out of older products. The effort of the new management to commit to this is appreciated, however I did not have confidence in their ability to carry it out well. Transitions and change are inevitable with every tech company, but when not handled properly, it can be really messy and not worth it as an employee to go through that whole process. As a tech company, it also relied so heavily on manual work (outsourced to those in developing countries) to the extent that one might not consider it a real tech company. Again, this problem came about from an inferior product and trying to wear too many hats - hence promising to clients that we are able to give them something that can only be done through intensive manual labour. Lastly, the pay is not up to market standard. It’s okay for a fresh grad for a start, but after a few months it’s clear there’s not much room for growth.
