Everything is burning. - Account Executive Social Tables Employee Review

2.0
25 Feb 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free snack food and drinks, fun coworkers (well, until they're fired), cool office.

Cons

Everything. Run. Do not take a job with this company. What was once a great company has quickly spiraled into the last few chapters of George Orwell's 1984 as they desperately try to put a lid on all the employees slowly waking up from their "koolaid comas". The two main problems with this company are the management and the failure of the product team to develop anything that could stay ahead of the curve. Lack of any vision by management, VR, and our larger competitors will make us irrelevant in just a couple years. The CEO/founder is quirky and irreverent and for some reason thinks it's a great idea to put the most inexperienced and youngest people in leadership positions. He created a culture that shamed anyone who didn't drink the corporate koolaid and quickly ridiculed people who dare treat this as a professional job and not a Jonestown prayer circle. This is likely what caused the downward spiral that has resulted in the slow purge of employees over the past year after scaling way too fast based on inaccurate predictions. It's not a good sign that the most tenured and senior employees/execs are fleeing ST like rats from a sinking ship. These are the people who see the balance sheet, so they are the canaries - take notice. If you've never been put on a "PIP" (performance improvement plan) and want to see what it's all about, then definitely come to ST. You will be guaranteed to be put on one at some point. There are a handful of reps here that were set up for success and who reaped the profits from inbound "Glengarry" leads for years and are now suffering because after the reorg they actually have to perform and it's glaringly obvious they only succeeded because the CEO played favorites with them. Everyone else is left with the "scraps" (absolute junk inbound leads with ridiculously low ASPs). For people interviewing - whatever they say your OTE will be, divide that number in half. New employees do not make much money here beyond salary - and no, that's not a challenge to you young and hungry salespeople...it's a warning. Take your talents elsewhere and let a better managed company feed your hunger. Management reorgs and changes the comp plan constantly and tries to spin it as if it's better (*insert cheery HR/exec team with plastered on smiles and clap circles*). Yes, these changes are better for about 5% of the team, but the other 95% of the team is much worse off than before. They also slashed basic benefits, which is a sign of ever slimming gross margins. This company had succeeded in bringing in new talent based solely on the illusion of a vibrant culture. They drive it into your head that culture is everything, when in reality they couldn't care less. It's all just gaslighting to keep you focused more on how fun the happy hours are and less on your shrinking paychecks. They want everyone to be a big happy family, but fail to see how disastrous that is when they start systematically executing large groups of your "family" (as has been the case with massive layoffs this past year). The CEO is the type of person to high-five you while he shoves the knife right in your back, without even blinking. To everyone still working here - wake up, look at yourself in 10 years, and ask yourself how much you could have done with 10 years at a new company. To anyone in the interview process - ask the tough questions and don't just talk to the people they steer you toward. Grab the person who isn't doing cartwheels around their desk and get the real story before you A.) set your career search back 6 months or B.) waste a year in a dead-end job before being involuntarily sent to the unemployment line!

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Social Tables Response
9y
Hi Tabler - I wanted to let you know that I saw this and I hear you. I see that you are concerned and frustrated and it's clear that you took a lot of time writing this. I have so much to say to this post, but mostly, come and talk to me (Sam) or Sarah if you can - I promise not to wear a fake smile or lead a happy clap circle. I do want you to be happy and successful and it sound like we have some areas to improve to help you get there. I will add some perspective and see if we can get you to a better place - 3 years is a really long time at such a young company so I know you have seen many changes during your tenure. I want to acknowledge that your experience is your truth and it looks like this may have been building for a while without an outlet, which is unfortunate. Thanks for directing people to Tiny Pulse as well, we do review and respond to every post in there.

Explore other reviews about Social Tables

5.0
17 Dec 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Social Tables was acquired by Cvent in October of 2018 - Way bigger pond to play in, lots of opportunities within Cvent for career growth - Best of both worlds - we retained our office, (great space in DT D.C.), our management team, a lot of autonomy; but have Cvent support in lots of efforts - Cvent has been helpful in breaking new ground with customers that before didn't work with us - Product has stabilized (although there are still some challenges) - You have to work hard (but you do have the opportunity to play hard!)

Cons

- The integration was really tough. We lost some people and almost every process was updated. - Cvent is way bigger and we had to level up to their contract cleanliness, etc. It was hard. - The good news is that 90% of integration projects are behind us - We have a few ongoing misalignments with the product team, but it's definitely better than it was a year ago

1
4.0
11 Jul 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Incredible professional development! The company really cares about the growth of each employee. There are always brown-bag lunch talks given by guest speakers and/or employees on all kinds of cool topics. The company also gives a $1000/year education stipend to each employee that can be spent on things such as attending a conference, online courses, etc... - Awesome culture driven completely by the people! There are hobby-oriented clubs for pretty much anything you can think of (movie club, basketball club, restaurant of the month club, push-ups club...you can even create your own if you want!). Everyone is very friendly and easy-going. Has a very family-like atmosphere to it. - Amazing engineering culture with a strong emphasis on using modern open-source technologies to solve very challenging problems. All of the engineers have a true love of learning and are always trying to grow their skills and knowledge. Great sense of camaraderie amongst the Product Development team

Cons

The company did suffer from employee work-life balance problems and miscommunication issues between upper-management, but most of those have been addressed in the past half-year. Sometimes the company can try to be too ambitious relative to the number of people we have to actually execute on the ideas.

4
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Social Tables Response
10y
Thanks for leaving a review and for the thoughtful management feed back. Keep the feedback coming!
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