account executive

reporter

advertising executive

event coordinator

advertising director

ACBJ

This was the worst job I had in my 20-career journalism career. It is the reason I left journalism. But there is no such thing as a bad job. People don’t leave jobs. They leave bad managers!

The office environment was extremely toxic and very hostile. In my two years there, I saw 3 people get fired, 1 quit to keep from getting fired and me, who finally had enough and decided it wasn’t worth it. That’s five people in two years, of a 20% turnover rate in two years’ 

My boss started training my replacement 3 months into my tenure. This person was promoted two days after my final day. I was told I lacked certain skills and that this person was better than me, even though I had a sleuth of awards for the things I got told I didn’t do well! 

It was their way or the highway. No one was open to new ideas or new ways of doing things. However, meetings were disorganized and every day the ineptitude of management resulted in disorganization and chaos. 

I could go on, but you get the idea. I was never given a chance and it ruined my experience. If you have any skills, value your life outside the office, or good office culture, don’t work here. 

The Orlando Business Journal is a challenging place to work. The staff consists of a small group of creative individuals that pulls together a big, informative weekly business publication every week.
Unlike other publications, the Orlando Business Journal operates like a daily but with only a quarter of the staff you may see at large publications. While this is great for the company — creating a lean and fast publication — it creates a stressful environment as each reporter must turn around a lot of copy in a small amount of time for both online and print. It's a lot to handle, but once grasped, it gives writers the feeling of actually accomplishing something. 
Also, being a business publication, writers have the ability to really get some one-on-one time with well-known local CEOs, go on interesting assignments and gather helpful information that could contribute to the local economy.

This company is going through some serious growing pains in moving out of the 80's or "the way we have always done it".  They  have a new and highly qualified Publisher (senior manager) who is having to unravel and re-format processes, and harness technology to do more for productivity.  The distribution of the major categories is not equitable for the sales team; one does very well and the others struggle.  The hardest part of the job is finding viable customer candidates in secondary business categories.  Individually, nearly everybody there is a "good person", but a long-time manager creates chaos simply to try to create an appearance of being "vital" to the company.

This was my favorite job. I worked on Fridays for weekly delivery. I work enter the office at about 4:30am, collected up all the newspaper bundles for delivery and away I went. Delivering to news stands, retail customers, and some private clients. Occasionally I would have to perform repairs on new paper boxes, or run into some off-beat individuals on the street in the middle of the night. My manager was let go in the middle of my employment and new manager was brought on. The new manager was a bit unorganized but was very understanding and quite helpful. Sadly the company was going through a budget crisis and my contract was not renewed and I was laid off.

As with any call center you'll find that everyone loves a little gossip, or at least it may seem that way. There are cliques in every department. Get in where you fit in otherwise your job might be in jeapordy. The pay more than makes up for the drama though. Although, management is very slack about doing anything until it is absolutely necessary. This could work in your favor if you prefer to feel like your work is your own responsibility. If you struggle though it wont be addressed until you come in one day to find you're no longer part of the company. The hardest part of the job is constant changes in procedure or information. The most enjoyable part of the job is the paycheck.

A typical day at work - Reviewing performance reports, communicating with audience, events, and advertising team in San Jose.  Coordinating event strategy and marketing campaigns with contributing teams.  Meeting with Audience Director for weekly, monthly strategy and community outreach.  Review budgets every week and delivering, communicating results from the market.  Working with c-level executives to build keep relationships to increase subscriptions and brand awareness.  

Management: Supportive, Innovative and Determined 

Co-workers:  Talented team of professionals

Hardest part of the job: Saying no to editorial

The most enjoyable part of the job: Working with such a dynamic, innovative brand and working with start-ups.

I absolutely love working here. This was my first job in my career field. I've been here for 5+ years - straight out of college. I've learned a lot of things as far as the career path I've chosen. I've learned how to apply my studies to real life situations and to think more outside the box. The atmosphere here is incredible - everyone is like family. The only two cons I can think of is advancement and you can get TOO comfortable. The job is very flexible but it's hard to advance. Like I said, everyone here is like family. Everyone here has worked here for more than 5+ years. Management really care about everyone here. I would recommend this job to anyone. Especially individuals straight out of college looking for a starting point.

Pros

There are some dedicated and awesome people on the team, mostly those down in the trenches.

Cons

Management takes a heavy-handed top-down approach- there's a lot of micro-managing. I never felt like it was a community... rather, when something went wrong, there was an extensive blame-game and a lot of finger pointing.
Leadership is incredibly money-minded, only focusing on who potential advertisers are, and what revenue can be generated, instead of helping and promoting small, local businesses and interests.
There's zero focus on employee dev, and people stay in the same positions for years, decades even.
Environment could be downright hostile at times, based on how the publisher was feeling that day.

As an agent facilitator I was responsible to help other sales agents close sales as well as help with operations on our custom dialer system. Maintain an average of 20 calls per hour and per week responsible for averaging 47 renewal sales and generate 3 new sale with a prepaid percentage of 55%. Also in charge of training new sales agents on our software as well as knowledge of over a hundred different products offered by Bizjournals. Had great interaction on a day to day basis with over 30 employees daily. The greatest part of my job was watching someone take the knowledge that I provided and use that to close a sale.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I loved the teamwork and flexibility to meet deadlines.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Press Day.  Deadlines are never easy

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Positive, but high pressure environment ebbs and flows like every deadline driven workplace.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Morning standup meetings to go over daily articles and weekly publications… review design specs for articles, event promotions, info charts and ad designs with design team.  Layout digital and print publications.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Account executive 34 salaries reported	$91,735 per year
Reporter 11 salaries reported	$69,818 per year
Advertising executive 8 salaries reported	$86,000 per year
Event coordinator 5 salaries reported	$24.80 per hour
Advertising director 5 salaries reported	$129,500 per year

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