Incredibly overworked and severely underpaid - what writer life at HubShout is like. - Content Writer HubShout Employee Review

In all honesty, this job took away my passion for my craft and my confidence in myself. Here's why: Once you prove to management that you're a competent writer who can handle deadlines, they'll work you as hard as they possibly can by asking you to take on extra duties without any type of additional compensation, quota reduction, or even acknowledgement. You're expected to complete 45 articles ('tasks') per week, with about 400 words per article (They told us that's one article every 48 minutes. Are we robots?). Sure, some of the featured news can be grouped together and written as one longer article, but you're writing an absolute minimum of 40 articles per week. That doesn't even include extra duties, like calls with clients, attending meetings, posting articles on Wordpress, making agendas for meetings, gathering topics and arranging editorial calendars...and the list goes on. Raises are virtually unheard of here. Instead, they give out 'bonuses' at the end of the year based on what's essentially an arbitrary rating of performance. Both years I was there, I was robbed of my bonus by a mere few hundredths of a point after being told repeatedly that I was 'on track' to receive a good bonus that year and hitting goal virtually every single week I worked there (exceeding goal many weeks as well). How's that for a blow to morale? Even the very nature of some of the work here seems questionable. For example, when we're on the phone with clients, we're typically supposed to avoid any mention of the word 'HubShout' due to the white-label nature of the business. Essentially, we're lying to our customers and making them think we're working for the reseller's company - the other agency involved in the transaction. It's a complicated mess. If the people paying for these services actually knew the mindset and amount of knowledge the writers have of most of the subjects they write about, they'd probably take their business elsewhere. Writers have to deal with some of the most complicated and technical subjects for incredibly niche industries that it's impossible to learn enough to write an article with a quick Google search. That, in and of itself, makes the job inherently unsustainable. To add insult to injury, the 'culture' (I use the word loosely because I never felt any sense of it) is greatly diminished by the very nature of the writers' jobs. Any time a 'fun' workplace event is scheduled, most writers are unable to attend because we have too much work - there was never a quota reduction offered, and if we went, we'd end up missing goal and getting greatly penalized. Any time writers asked about a quota reduction, they'd get told "I don't know - let me ask and get back to you" without ever hearing back. Seriously, what's the point of going to a "fun" event during work hours if you just have to rush even more later in the week to make up for it? As far as I know, no other employees had this issue other than the writers. All the Bob Ross painting events in the world can't make up for the absolutely atrocious way this company treats their writers. We were brushed under the rug and dismissed with each and every one of our concerns, without fail. Even the editors, who started as writers and should've understood our struggle, didn't hear out our concerns or advocate for our wellbeing in any real way, which is incredibly disappointing, to say the least. Instead, they just point out tiny ways you can still improve (even though you're taking on a heavier workload without a higher pay) and tell you to "manage your time better" or "work harder," frowning upon anyone who asks for any type of help or quota reduction (yes, I literally got penalized for this, even though I only needed that help because of all the extra work I was taking on). They never cease to focus on the small things you're doing wrong over the countless things you're doing RIGHT. It was only after I spent two years here and had been taking on an abundance of extra tasks that I perpetually started to fall behind because asking for help was seen as a sign of weakness. I finally drew the line and flat-out quit when the extra tasks I was taking on as a senior writer became far too much to handle - especially at the poverty wage level of $12.20/hr. I could walk into almost any grocery store or fast food restaurant, fresh out of high school, without a degree and make more than that per hour. Anyone with a heart or even an ounce of decency in their soul knows that those rates are flat-out extortion with this type and level of workload. This company doesn't deserve to be successful while taking such cruel advantage of younger workers just trying to get their foot in the door. (And yes, they do aim to hire younger workers, presumably so they can drastically underpay them - I recall there being an initiative to make HubShout the "best place to work for recent grads.") I could go on and on about the injustices witnessed during my time at HubShout; this is just the beginning. Fortunately, I was able to easily find a drastically better remote job that pays twice the salary of HubShout, and other writers surely can, too. I'm sure the CEO will formulate some articulate response to this review in an attempt to smooth things over and save face for the company like he always does. But everything I've written here is true - the company outwardly looks as if it prioritizes the culture and the overall wellbeing of employees, but it absolutely does not - it's all a carefully crafted illusion. The bottom line is this: writers, don't stop your job search once you get hired here. There are plenty of other options out there that will pay you what you're worth with a much more reasonable workload. Use the stress at this job as motivation to find a better one. And above all, don't let the terrible management make you lose passion for your craft. You deserve a job that treats you fairly, and you absolutely will not find it at HubShout.