Penguin Random House reviews

It's a lot of grunt-work. A lot of long hours. A lot of tedious tasks, such as list-building and mailing packages. The pay is abysmal, and the work atmosphere is very hierarchical and can be, at times, demeaning to a young person who wants to learn and has ideas. High-stress, high-pressure, and surprisingly fast-paced environment. You get 20 days of vacation even as an assistant, but I never felt comfortable taking my vacation. Promotions are often more title changes than actual promotion--you may get promoted to Associate Publicist, but you'll still be a Senior Publicist's assistant while working on your own full list of books, and the pay raise will be incremental.

Staff very secretive and embrace that culture - openly working on "secret projects" which everyone knew about anyway. Lack of HR support provided to staff and managers. Managers don't know enough about staff, too self interested. Only willing to employ on FTC, I was told in interview that this would convert into a permanent role. No, instead they continuously renewed probation period. No investment in staff. No induction process that is helpful to someone from outside of the publishing industry. Many staff and former colleagues unhappy with management structure and style, but unwilling to leave due to the prestige of working for the worlds biggest publisher - hence lots of underlying resentment.