EF (Education First)

4.0

Jan 9, 2017

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Awesome people, fun atmosphere in a super modern building that's like a glorified Ikea right on the Charles River in Cambridge, MA and in an accessible location. Epic company parties, kickoff events and team outings in Boston and beyond (there's no holding back!). Casual and productive working atmosphere where everyone's approachable no matter their job title - they encourage you to get up from your desk to go talk to other departments instead of emailing back and forth. Diverse personalities of people make the team interesting and there's always someone to talk to who you can bounce ideas off of or get work advice from. My favorite benefits included: 3 weeks paid vacation your first year and 4 weeks in your second year and beyond, informative career building events from senior managers about once a month, free language classes (one class per week for an 8 week session), generous 401K match, and a very inclusive health insurance coverage. Depending on the product, if you're there for over 2 years, your flight to visit the EF world headquarters in Luzern, Switzerland for 2 days may be covered, which means you could make a Eurotrip out of that visit. Back at the Boston office, there's a bar and restaurant on the main level, so it's convenient to socialize with co-workers after hours, especially as new people join the team. It's a great place to start your career and get a feel for a professional office environment with a casual twist.

Cons

It's a heavily sales based and pressuring environment most of the time. Managers tend to favor and promote employees who have a loud personality, despite their working ability which gets very frustrating. They expect a lot to be done without a lot of given direction. A lot of times you can feel micromanaged as daily reports of your accomplishments are sent out to the team. If you're a dedicated employee, often times the amount of work you have to do to truly make the customer content requires staying late well beyond your hours. For most positions that aren't management, you're asked to work shifts, so it's not a standard 9-6pm job. This can be convenient sometimes to accommodate appointments, etc., just something to be aware of. Lots of turnover. Also, there's ironically not a lot of opportunity to travel - you have to really make yourself known to get any sort of chance to travel to an offsite event (that's not already a company wide event) which means you have to be very persistent. Salary is very low for the amount of work you're expected to do and still maintain the quality customers are expecting. Bonuses are extremely difficult to achieve unless you're an aggressive seller. As much as managers try to help you grow your career at EF, the reality is it is challenging to find a true career path if you're not interested in growing into a sales related position. Rewards for hitting goals were usually happy hours which get old quickly and aren't motivating.

EF (Education First) Response

Wow - thank you for this thoughtful feedback. It's incredibly valued! You raise great points about the importance of investing in our terrific staff and demonstrating career paths. Because we are a flat, decentralized company -- which generally allows us to move fast, be flexible and create growth opportunities within staffs' roles -- demonstrating a "linear" career path has been a challenge. One of the tactics we've employed to address this challenge is facilitating regular meetings among the leadership teams from all of our businesses to discuss their key open roles and the internal talent who are ready for their next challenge and might be a fit for those roles. We hold a similar meeting that is attended by line managers and is designed to achieve the same outcome. In the Boston office alone, these and other efforts have produced two new opportunities each week, including promotions, product moves, office moves and even international moves. Thanks again for sharing your experience! -- Mike Kaufman, Sr. Director of People Operations

Great place to start, challenging to find a true career - Account Manager EF (Education First) Employee Review

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