Swoon Reviews

* Turnover. Do a quick search on LinkedIn of everyone who only stayed for 1-2 years. They will scapegoat and say that people needed to leave, which may be true in some cases, but definitely not most. Then, they will try some half-hearted attempt at accepting turnover and claim they are 'continuously changing and improving,' but they aren't. There are a few people in leadership who have been there for awhile due to obvious favoritism and the Founder's inability and unwillingness to hold those people accountable. They have no reason to leave a cushy job. Outside of leadership, there is no one that has been there for any real length of time. See for yourself. * Take positive reviews with a grain of salt, and pay attention to the tenure of those 'reviewers' as most of those people haven’t worked there for longer than 6 months. They essentially force new hires to write reviews while they are in the honeymoon phase. Also, contractors are encouraged to write reviews, so that skews the data on Glassdoor greatly. * Refusal to accept any feedback, whatsoever. If you are struggling, they tell you that you'll be able to contribute to change when you're a top performer. Then, when you do become a top performer, they'll tell you that the challenges you face clearly don't matter because you were able to overcome the obstacles before, and the under performers just need to 'work harder.' It's a Catch 22 that keeps them from reaching the next level as a business. * Lack of direction of any sort: Every 6 months the founder changes his mind and, in turn, the entire direction and structure of the organization. They will make a drastic change on a whim, but not plan out any actual implementation and then to everyone’s 'surprise,' it doesn’t work and he will change everything again. * Lack of professional development. They don’t take anyone's career seriously, even if you work your butt off for them. They believe that they are doing you a favor by letting you work there. * Overall, Swoon has a very negative environment. Its 100% the fault of leadership. They emphasize how open and transparent they are, but I witnessed firsthand the level of gossip that happens at the leadership level. When the leaders do those things, how do they expect everyone else to hold themselves to a higher standard? Leadership takes no fault for anything and claim that employees are negative or were “bad apples” that needed to leave, but those “bad apples” happened to be some of the best people they had. * The only people that are happy at Swoon are people that are either brand new, and don’t know any better, or the 'favorites'. You will very quickly learn that certain practices are enforced for the “regular employee” versus a favorite. If you are a favorite and unsuccessful at hitting your goal, they will literally just create a new job for you that never existed. If you are not one of the chosen few, they will put you on an unobtainable Performance Improvement Plan based on goals that no one else has ever achieved, rendering you with nothing else to do but search for a new job. * It’s all very fake. I worked there too hard for too long. I was someone that came in early and stayed late. It gets you nowhere, honestly. There are too many other great companies to explore. Swoon has nothing to offer except a cool office space, and kegs in the kitchen. Its all cool at first, but not worth the headaches that come with working there.

It is sold as a fun culture, but there is a major difference between culture and perks, that is truly lost on Senior Leadership. Culture is about creating a feeling of ownership in your employees, and making them buy into the company's goals, because they feel they're being invested in. There is little to no opportunity for career growth, and this is largely because there is a core group of people that have been with the company from the start that receive opportunities with very little training or knowledge around the teams they're leading. It is a culture of 'what have you done for me lately' and although they preach collaboration, they only really care about individual performance. If a team member next to you is struggling, they will tell you to 'worry about yourself, and will ultimately terminate that employee, and take 0% responsibility for it. They deem certain employees as 'bad apples' or 'bad hires' when in reality, this means 1 of 2 things. Either they are a staffing agency that is incapable of finding the right people for even themselves, calling into question the credibility of their business in general OR (more likely) their 200% turnover rate of their sales team, and 40% turnover rate of their recruiting team probably has something to do with the way the company is being run. Managers don't have training in the areas they manage, or in management itself, so it really is up to the individual to attain the goals that are put in front of them. The goals are created based on the hopes and dreams of Senior Leadership, and are created with little to no thought around actual business analytics. They are actually OBSESSED with Glassdoor, and instead of reading this and feeling any personal consequence whatsoever, they will instruct an army of new recruiters to write posts or make up profiles to talk about how this is 'the best place ever' in hopes of continuing to trick people into working there. Myself, and the nearly 25 other people that left last year wish I would have heeded the negative reviews prior to signing on.