In the Know
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2001)
Vault.com
is a web site used by job seekers to get the lowdown
on what it’s really like to work for a company — in
full, unexpurgated, and unsubstantiated glory. Many
publishers aren’t even listed, including the entire
Holtzbrinck group, while Norton gets little
traffic and virtually no messages. Same with S&S,
which has had all of three messages posted in the last
year.
On several publishing message boards, however, the emails
are flying. Not surprisingly, given its size, one of
those is Random House (though it’s not up to
the level of Barnes & Noble, which has had
137 postings in that time). Recently the subject of
salaries at Random has become a hot topic, with several
workforce entrants astounded at the high (relatively)
starting salaries. This led to some mean spirited (and
misspelled) emails suggesting that Random’s hiring practices
are not all that they could be. One ex-employee called
the company “Racist House,” while another offers a mock
list of job qualifications: “Blond Hair, Blue Eyes.
Long legs a plus. . . .”
The debate over hiring and salary practices, however,
has been raging since the site launched in ’99, and
Random is certainly not alone. An ex-Scholastic employee
slammed the company last week for its low pay and long
hours. Another slammed an individual, which is against
Vault policy (PT has since brought the posting
to their attention), while one particularly frustrated
ex-employee railed, “I sometimes thought that the entire
company was an overblown psychological experiment to
see just how much ‘wacky’ behavior a ‘real’ employee
could take.” As for “picking managers out of the hat”
(the method another email suggested was used by the
company), “I think they pick some off the wall of the
post office.”
Others seem more generous. “Anonymous,” apparently fed
up with the carping, wrote: “I left Scholastic 2 years
ago and have been miserable ever since. I didn’t know
I had it so good . . . I long for the good old days.
. . .” Hire that email!
©2001
Publishing Trends
