Dynamic and creative agency - Managing Director, London Democracy Employee Review

Fantastic clients. Amazing opportunity to work with both household name brands and owner managed companies, giving you a great scope of experience and access to develop fun and thought-provoking campaigns. Wickedly intelligent colleagues. Recruitment process means you work with people who are genuinely smart. From the very top of the hierarchy right down to the latest recruit. Innovation. This is an environment that values pioneering ideas, and wins awards from embracing new ideas to engage. Your CV will be packed full of smart and exciting campaigns. Teamwork. Its the basis of the way the agency works, and if you pitch in, you become part of a team that always has your back and always has time to help you hone ideas and overcome obstacles. Insight-led. They never do PR for PR's sakes. All activity is informed by insight which means you develop campaigns that really do make a meaningful difference. Opportunities to learn. You can given the chance to rise to the challenge if you're willing to learn on the job and embrace opportunities. Those who put their hands up and dig in, get noticed.

The con is agency life isn't for everyone. There are always big personalities involved, the pace is always fast, and clients have high expectations which you have to meet, as your livelihood depends on them. You need resilience and you need to be prepared to put in, in order to get out. Democracy has high expectations but it offers great experience and friends for life if you make the effort to meet them.

Some incredibly nice people work at Democracy, if it wasn’t for them I would have left MUCH sooner. Nice location

One of the most old-school companies I’ve ever worked for. Incredibly toxic environment, you were looked down on for taking your lunch break or finishing on time, you were belittled openly if your ideas were not deemed worthy. There was ZERO training and development even though this is something Democracy claim to be good at. Bullying tactics were often used leaving numerous staff members in tears/ panic attacks... but if you showed any emotion you were called weak and told to leave the office. You were asked to be proactive and bring new ideas to the table, yet every time you did you were knocked back (in a nasty manner) A lot of gossip culture, numerous occasions where staff members were openly spoken about in front of people. Awful pay for the amount of work expected and absolutely no feedback taken from senior staff when pay/training and development was raised.