Pros
Great perks like the company trip, booze outings, days at the CEO's lake house and regular on-campus drinking. You're able to get lots of exposure to senior management if you're so inclined. In your first year or two out of college you will have more experience than anyone else in your graduating class. This is very attractive in making RV a career launch pad. Red Ventures has also gotten a lot better with compensation in the past year.
Cons
Red Ventures provides one career path for analysts/associates: Associate, Senior Associate, and Director. It will take you 2-3 years to get bumped into the next level, which typically starts at 25k more than your previous position started at. If you have skills that are outside of this track, they won’t be recognized in your review. Find someone who has climbed this ladder and follow their lead. Red Ventures is very protective of their culture – which is to get a sale at all costs. The corporate team is called ‘sales support’ for a reason. If you’re not on the phones, than it’s your job to sell the now defunct Red Ventures business model to partners (see: clients). The better you look holding a coffee and explaining a dashboard to a prospective client, the more that management likes you. There’s a monoculture approach to talent at RV as well. Ric has come out and said “we’re all type A personality types here”, which if you’re not, keep looking for other companies. Talent acquisition is volume based, in that there are ‘classes’ of analysts with expected churn. Those analysts will be replaced with new analysts every summer. RV does not attract, retain, or hire mid-level talent. RV has tried to take some steps in developing mid-level talent, but what they’re doing is just putting clear walls up in to how you’re expected to act to get promoted. The promotion funnel gets stricter and stricter with every new ‘class’ that comes in. Learning at RV stops after 2 years – if your more than two years in your career – move on. Red Ventures has a strange ‘profit unit’ aspect of compensation. It’s not equity, you have no say in decisions, they can be added or removed at any time, and are stripped when you leave the company. If the company doesn’t make a profit that quarter, then they have no obligation to pay you this part of your salary. When payouts do come, they are considered part of your ‘cash compensation’ and thus, some people are getting bigger payouts than others. Don’t confuse these units with stock or options.