I’m laying it all down for transparency. Interview process was setup up quickly after the initial screening call with the recruiter (horrible experience with recruiter explained later). A 2nd recruiter handled the scheduling of my interviews by asking for my availability. Three 30-minute Microsoft Teams virtual video interviews were then scheduled, one interview each day for three days.
First two interviews went very well (or so I believed). Interviewers were friendly and welcoming, seamlessly answered their questions and they were willing to stay on longer to chat and answer my questions. Off to a great start, right?
The third interview is where things took a turn. The interviewer kept his camera off and said I can have my camera off, which surprised me as that has never happened before. I didn’t mind, however the interviewer sounded stressed, sighing A LOT and as if he didn’t feel like interviewing from the start. Which explains why he wanted the camera off, he probably looked stressed/irritated for whatever reason before our interview. Also assuming he just does not like interviewing at all.
He had asked about my experience, and before I could finish he stopped me after 2 sentences and immediately started asking questions on KPIs/how would I go about optimizing social budgets/what’s my experience with building audiences/etc. And he was still sighing you all, the whole way through. Literally felt like a depressing interview and a complete 180 from the first two. I at least was able to finish my response in the first two interviews, he had a tendency to interrupt and just start throwing questions - so I was unable to give a full complete overview of my experience. I still maintained answering his questions efficiently, but sheez I truly felt he needed to relax. Or ask someone else to conduct the interview. Horrible.
When he was finished with his rapid 100 questions and I was able to ask mine, one of my questions inquired on the company’s culture in terms of valuing employees time, and I could hear him trying to give the company grace and fumbling a bit with his wording (and you guessed it, he kept on sighing). Ultimately, from his interview alone, I knew I would be overworked/working overtime A LOT with no overtime compensation. He also mentioned it’s the same as any agency and would require working overtime (boom got my answer) but he tried to skew his words to make it not sound bad (not fooling me).
And he was not accurate with his statement, because my current company is an agency as well, however, employees are never overworked because they say, “there’s no point in working overtime if you’re not getting overtime pay” and we are always strongly encouraged to log off on time or even earlier if the work is done for the day. “The work can wait until tomorrow” is what my agency says, and our client knows this as well and are aligned. So that let’s me know Horizon Media doesn’t value employee time management and definitely failed to strictly enforce with their clients an understanding of their company’s employee time management as well (because they have none).
Word of advice for those reading, if you currently work for an agency that overworks you with no overtime pay, if only you knew it’s not worth it and there are agency’s not like that. RUN and value your time + mental health. The same way we cannot carry out client requests outside of scope, you should not carry out tasks outside of the hours you signed to work. Work for a company that values you, your time, and your mental health. Not a company that likes to say it to look good. Do your research on the company, ask the right questions, be mindful and be smart with your decision.
I saw reviews say Horizon Media/Horizon Next offers unlimited PTO but it’s useless because no one handles anything while you’re out (OOO), so you come back to a heavy workload to clean up. My current agency values covering for those who are OOO and it’s all about team work. This company needs to take notes and revamp their culture to be the same way for any chance at being competitive.
Recruiters also leave an impression of the company and its culture. So to make matters worse, the recruiter I had the initial screening call with completely ignored my emails - going on 3 weeks and still nothing. His recruiting professionalism is at an all time low. No response, no insight on updates, no insight on even closure if not being considered, nothing. Will read your email, ignore and literally like posts on LinkedIn throughout the day (we’re able to see a users LinkedIn activity on their profile). Completely disrespectful and speaks volumes on the reflection of his values.
My interviews were for Horizon Media, but I’ve heard awful things about working at Horizon Next as well. Best of luck in your job search!