Pros
Cricket Media still has a (small and ever-shrinking) knot of intelligent, kind, creative, and talented editors and designers who have the skills and experience to create first-rate children's media content. If you're fresh out of college or hungry for a title bump, it's possible that it's worth the chaos to "break in" to a creative field--but bear in mind that Cricket Media is isolated from the children's publishing industry (or any other industry), has no professional development budget, and doesn't send staffers to industry conferences. Publishing's a relationship business, and Cricket will not help you build the relationships you need to get the next job. And the company's history of failing to pay authors will limit your ability to leverage your title to get speaking gigs, network, etc. So: will a job here count as "breaking in"? Yes and no: you can hustle for authors and illustrators and try to build a portfolio of successes through the ongoing chaos and dysfunction, but you're going to have to be scrappy and tough to pull off any work you're proud of. (Designers may do better than editors here: a portfolio is a portfolio. Once you're here, you might want to focus on doing individual stories at portfolio-quality level and letting others slide: the company won't give you the time to do all your work well.) And you'll have to hustle to build your own industry contacts and consistently be prepared for the suspicion you encounter when you name-drop a Cricket brand. Remember: Cricket Media does not care about you or your career growth. Don't trust shiny smiles from management at the interview level. They'll be asking you to absorb more work for the same pay as soon as you're here.
Cons
Between regular (every 6 mo) rounds of layoffs and the ongoing exodus of dissatisfied staffers in every department, it's an enormous challenge to maintain product consistency and hit deadlines. Layoffs are always difficult and disheartening, but particularly so when management has no background in publishing (lacks the knowledge to lead teams in strategically scaling back to accommodate labor shortages). It's also a problem that management never builds a plan for how staff will be allocated in the wake of a layoff. We currently have staffers who do not know which brand they work on. When it comes to replacing the sky-high number of staffers who have quit in despair, management's showing a similar incompetence: HR has no background in publishing or any other creative industry, has failed to recruit any talent, ignores basic creative hiring processes (ie editorial tests for editorial hires), and blocks attempts by the creative team to get involved and offer their skills in recruiting talent. Key editorial positions have been vacant for over a year, with freelancers and staffers pitching in as best they can to keep products moving out the door. The disregard for publishing industry practices might make sense if management could articulate a fresh direction for the company, but beyond vague stump speech lines about digital 2.0 (or 3.0, or 12.0), there's no clear vision of what patch of the digital landscape this company's strategically poised to go after. Does Cricket Media's leadership even know what kind of company they're trying to create? Management's communications with staffers are an Orwellian nightmare. Conversations about the company's new direction are nothing but vague lines about "digital 2.0" (/3.0/8.0/???????), but maintaining the quality of the print magazines (or the digital products, for that matter) is the last priority. Management refuses to lead conversations about scaling back on the scope of projects in the face of staffing shortages, blaming employees as "poor communicators" rather than looking at structural causes of problems and seeking structural solutions. Staffers have asked for training on digital tech etc., the only professional development being offered is online classes on improving our communication skills. (A recent speech from HR ran: 1) We've been hearing a lot of complaints lately, and we don't want to hear that. 2) We're guessing that's because of how much work you all have. 3) In response, here are some great online courses on improving how you communicate with each other. There was no conversation about responding to the workload issue.) Transparency continues to be a huge problem at the company: management dodges straight questions. This fosters a climate of paranoia and confusion. So far, the creative teams have labored heroically to support each other and extend each other enormous grace as we all struggle through, but eventually, labor shortages will force resource wars, and tiny interpersonal conflicts will flare out of proportion. This isn't about the staff, it's about the structure: Cricket Media is a toxic, dysfunctional, unstable workplace where professionalism is pushed past the breaking point and the most stable, reasonable employee with is driven to harried confusion and despair.