Condé Nast reviews

Essentially, this isn't a grad scheme as I understood it would be. It's a media sales role which involves cold calling people to sell ad space in classified (the section at the back of the magazine). I found the office a really strange and outdated environment to be in. (It's almost school-like... everyone faces the front of the office to face the director, you have to make X calls per day, you can't leave the office for regular breaks etc.) Most girls who work there (it's an all girl office) seem overly stressed. I was at the company for over nine months and turn over is unbelievably high. My guess is that many people (like me) didn't find the role challenging enough. During the time I was there, there was no opportunity for me to go out and meet clients face to face, as promised in the job advert. There were even some girls who had been there for more than 18 months who had never attended a meeting with their clients. Oddly, meeting clients is discouraged by the management team. In terms of training, other than your induction week which is spent in the classroom learning sales techniques taught to you by senior sales executives and managers, I was offered very little training and I believe that zero digital sales training in classified. Progressing within the company itself is really hard, although people have done it in the past. This is because you're competing with people from other media companies who have digital and face to face sales experience. As such, many people leave to go to competitor titles. Also, hardly any account manager roles inhouse were advertised during the time I worked there. Working for the 'Grad Scheme' you feel very isolated from the rest of the company- for instance, Classified is apparently the only department which has to pay for their own Xmas party! We were rarely invited to events and talks or even to meet the editorial and, or advertising team representing the magazines each person worked on. Although I did attend one hour-long talk at The Condè Nast College.

The level of disorganization is almost unbearable, as is the micro-management, the unrealistic expectations, and the lack of respect shown by many members of the team to others. Office politics are part of every role, but here, you will spend so much time stroking grown adults’ egos that you’ll barely have time to do your actual job. You can also expect plenty of blame games, as finger-pointing is as much a part of life here as renting clothes to fit “the look”—a luxury few can afford, but all are silently expected to adhere to. (Yes, it will eat up a massive chunk of your already-meager paycheck; yes, you will be ostracized if you don’t do it, anyway.) It’s difficult to tell the difference between who is incredibly busy, who is unnecessarily standoffish, and who is both. You will be flooded with a thousand tasks outside of your job description with no praise or additional compensation—and you will be subtly looked down on if you refuse to do or downright can’t manage it all. You will get Slacks from 6 am to 11 pm that you are expected to respond to, no matter what. Every one good day is offset by four that are bad. I am telling you now that turnover at Conde is high for a reason. It isn’t so much that people “don’t make it” (which is exactly the unhealthy mindset we need to quash in order to change unreasonably harsh work environments) as it is that ultimately, people realize it just isn’t worth it. In any case, why would you want to contribute to the cycle of toxicity at this company whose entire reputation is built on cruelty and classism, and where “success” is essentially achieved by being so utterly cold-blooded that many of the people you work with dislike you? It takes a lot of hard work to land a job at Conde Nast. But I am telling you, as a lifelong overachiever, that working here is no longer something to aspire to. You can have a fulfilling career by being kind to people. You can find work at incredibly reputable brands whose work and culture are both far more future-proof. You can do better for yourself and your mental health. Really. They have flown by on prestige for far too long.