Pros
Working with some very talented and down to earth people.
Cons
The company prides itself by saying "were not like other agencies." I was enticed by that prospect since I had worked with several other agencies (some good,bad, and ugly). However it soon became apparent why they kept saying this line. It was because the leadership genuinely did not know how to run a successful agency or business for that matter so they would give a cop-out excuse to dismiss the lack of process that was rampant. Company-wide meetings are so scarce there that 95%, employees are left in the dark about what is actually going on with the business. One thing that stood out the most was when the owner of the company came into give an internal-all speech and one of his exact lines was "It's okay if we don't have a process, as long we get along." I honest to god chuckled and looked around the room to the looks of confusion among employees. The lack of process thing was okay at first because it meant directors and such were not hounding you every second of the day. However, for years ARS didn't have A SINGLE project manager, UX/IA/Wireframe person, and still don't have an HR person to handle internal affairs. This was a problem because some of the team leads who are still there were clearly treating younger girls differently than other employees (saying inappropriate comments about their looks, including myself, giving them unwanted gifts, trying to date the younger girls right out of college, bragging about who they had relations with at the company etc) and these are people in the highest positions doing this. Because nepotism runs rampant at ARS, these things are swept under the rug by leadership. For a company of 30-50 people (Chicago), it becomes really uncomfortable really fast and almost feels like a high-school experience. As far as leadership goes at ARS, it is some of the weakest I have encountered at the many companies I have worked with. It may even be the worst in many respects. This is not a personal attack on any one individual, but it just needs to be said. It's almost common knowledge within the company that the leadership at the very top are truly bad at doing what they should be doing: Leading, caring about employees and making intelligent business decisions. I saw almost none of these traits in my time there. What I did see was leaders blowing off very important meetings, hiding from their employees daily, not communicating AT ALL, offering little to no praise to big employee accomplishments, and making bad decisions that cost us lots of money and business. I have heard others call ARS leadership many things (bait and switch, smoke and mirrors etc) and these are all very accurate. The company will say things like they are getting a satellite office for suburban employees because they care so much about them, then scrap the whole thing and force them to commute downtown. They will tell you one week that you will have flexibility to work from home 1-2 days a week when appropriate, then say the next week that you cant. They say they will listen to our "pain points" and do better, but nothing changed for the better from the time I first started there. It only got much worse. From the constant changing to unaffordable health insurance, to underpaying valuable employees and overpaying others, the problems never ended. Mini-Exodus's, Mass-Exodus's and yearly layoffs are so common that its hard to fathom how this company is staying afloat. The worst part for me though is just how common leadership will hire and fire people without an empathy whatsoever. Sure people get let go at many companies, but I had never seen anything like this before. If you rock the boat just an inch, offer a differing opinion, or even look at leadership the wrong way, you better believe they're putting you in their black book for the next round of annual layoffs. If you're looking to be a copywriter there, expect to be paid about 50% less than other agencies. If your looking to be a developer, expect to work many many late nights on unchallenging, unexciting, but tedious projects. If you're looking to be an Art Director, expect to actually being a production designer. If you're looking to be a designer, expect quantity, not quality. Expect to work without any wireframes at all. Also, their main clients are switching to the AEM platform with pre-designed components making the designer's and developers jobs almost meaningless and soon to be obsolete. If you're looking to be an executive or VP with a bloated salary, then ARS may be the place for you. Cash out as they lay off more and more smart, valuable and talented people and keep those at the top that are getting raises in the wake of others demise. ARS is so top-heavy that its no surprise why its failing the way it is. They lost their 3 biggest clients in one year. Had the budgets slashed in half by their 2 current biggest clients the next year, and lost millions of dollars in business from a new client because of truly terrible decisions by leadership. In my time there, watching them trying to win new business was painful. Their process of pitching work to win business is amateurish at best. They rush to do everything last minute then ask creatives to "throw"something together the day before the pitch. It really is just like that. And of course; without surprise, little to no "new" business is actually won. I don't have any personal vendettas against anyone at the company, these are just the facts. And everyone outside of leadership knows these truths. If you're looking to work here, I promise you that there are dozens if not hundreds of better places in the Chicago area to work; where you don't have to be constantly afraid of being laid off.