AcadiumReviews of acadium.com

Thank you Acadium for giving me the opportunity to learn and to grow. Learning Digital Marketing without application is a struggle for me. But with your help, I gain more knowledge and confidence in pursuing my career in this field.

I love the concept of Acadium, but its implementation needs a lot of work still. I initially joined when they were still GenM, and didn't feel it was a good fit for me then. I've got plenty of Digital Marketing experience, sometimes more than the folks supposedly offering me an apprenticeship, so I made it clear what kinds of work I wanted to offer support with that weren't within those frameworks. Sadly, every single company that contacted me wanted me to work with them on the things I have 20+ years experience with. So I left it, made my account dormant, and forgot about them. Fast forward to yesterday when I remembered I have an account with GenM (now Acadium). Cool, maybe things evolved, and I can get an apprenticeship with a skill I'm actively learning (Analytics). I searched through every single offering for "Marketing Analytics" (there weren't a lot), and all but three wanted help with something other than analytics. Disappointing. Then I went to the training, and this is where I got mad. The training was, in a word, ridiculous. Full of grammar, spelling, and misused words, it didn't teach me anything new (and made me hit up a search engine repeatedly to figure out what on earth they were trying to teach me). I ended up giving feedback for 80% of the slides in the program before I gave up -- I'm not doing their job for them. I really wanted to love Acadium, but this isn't the platform for me.

I was running into login problems and needed to change my password, so I emailed support. Their response was fast. I got a reset link that worked and I was back up and running in a few minutes. I also love that having the app brings me chat messages even faster than email, so I can respond to clients faster. You're doing a great job!

Addendum: This business is a flawed model with a leader who is a dishonest bully. He is gaming the reviews by offering refunds contingent on removing negative reviews. I would google 'Gen-M' as they had to change their name because this happened before. Basically, Acadium is a scam that profits off of vulnerable interns. And Moe, the CEO, lied in his response to this review. To clarify, there were no actual complaints against my business because there were no interviews, reach outs or interactions with this platform to even complain about. I had multiple documented conversations with Moe with no mention of complaints. I did not get any applications for an internship and conducted no interviews. I hired two stipended interns that were paid an honorarium of 2000 dollars each but not an hourly wage. Most of the positive reviews on here are a few lines from a mentee. I suspect they are prompted by Acadium to game the numbers and negative reviews being removed with refunds. Most mentors seemed to have an experience akin to mine. I whole-heartedly advise you to stay away from Acadium, Gen-M, whatever it's called. Not worth the time, money, headache. And I would not support the leadership team of this start up given the egregious behavior in response to a bad experience. I declined the refund because I don't want other people to waste their time and money with this operation that at best takes advantage of unpaid interns. The disingenuous and desperate effort to undermine my credibility here is something I have fortunately never experienced before. ------- I would NOT sign up for this platform as an employer. It is a waste of money. I've messaged many people over 4 months and not gotten even one good lead. Most ghosted, declined to chat. I even messaged every person available in my timezone and got no responses. The team member who signed me up left the company (Yaz) and did not respond to any of my emails or calls and then left the company. My office was next to their Toronto office and I would overhear them selling selling selling but what they claim to offer does not live up to the hype at all. Furthermore, the calibre of people on the platform that are available are very junior, non English speaking or too busy to take on any internship roles. People don't actively use the platform so hiring someone can take months and requires you to do a significant amount of work to find someone. There is no vetting of mentors/employers. If you pay them the non-refundable fee, you get to post an internship. And any suggestion of the otherwise is false. I posted the internship online via Monster and got several higher caliber candidate leads, one of whom I hired for a paid internship through my University. If I'm going to spend money, I'd rather it go to my apprentice and not this platform who is essentially a poor quality middle man. Our non-profit media publication that has been working tirelessly to report on the pandemic is now out money and there is no way to use this useless platform to hire anyone and no refunds after 14 days. Just friendly emails suggesting I should make the role seem like less work and commitment to attract someone. I was also told the reason I didn't get a single lead was my fault and that I needed to spend more time to make it work. Maybe this works for the 1 or 2 superstar interns that join or for very junior people or those overseas that can't get their foot in the door, but this is a flawed model with money going to the least deserving parties involved. Complete waste of time and money. Stay away, stay away stay away. This is a small step up from a scam and makes money off of the free labor of vulnerable interns.

I've been in this program for three years. Done five-six apprenticeships. Completed the Ambassador Program. Now about to finish the Acadium Accelerator Program. Although I was able to network and meet good people and glad I was able to learn things, I do have my thoughts based on my observations: 1. Needs to make training AND securing jobs a priority one 2. You're asking apprentices to work with mentors for a company alongside the team to help perform tasks... you shouldn't penalize people just for asking (not soliciting, just asking a simple question) could apprenticeships lead to work with companies, or if it's paid. Isn't that the whole point of this program? To advance in a digital marketing career? This is what I found dumb as this happened to me when speaking to a representative that flagged my account. 3. I see many mentors and owners complain about the pool of apprentices about not communicating timely, poor quality, etc. I can say the same for some mentors on Acadium. You can tell some are taking advantage of the mentoring label just to get people to do free work for them cause they're cheap. Some I've experienced with didn't communicate timely, ghosted me as well, and had unrealistic expectations of wanting to treat apprentices like full-time employees to perform all these tasks... when there suppose to be working part-time as an assistant. Not to mention, not paid. 4. Some of my mentors used me just for the work where they either didn't publish any or didn't give it much acknowledgment. It was like once the apprenticeship was over, the relationship was over (this is where I mention you feel used). One mentor from the Accelerator Plus program wanted me to do audits for four businesses claiming "it's a way to get your foot in the door". As an aspiring digital marketer that wanted to help in any way I can, I proceeded. Zero success. No acknowledgment. No references. Just a waste of time. One mentor deleted all my scripts after the apprenticeship was over nor used any of them. What was the point of having me as an apprentice? There are many flaws in this program. I feel after this current apprenticeship, I'll be done for good. I'm not saying it won't be the same for you and you may get lucky, but don't think this will automatically lead to job opportunities cause I'm sure I ain't the only one that had zero success.

Acadium is a great platform. It solves a worldwide problem by giving inexperienced Digital Marketer a platform to get Hands on experience as well as giving mentors a platform to find a pool of eager apprentices at a close to nothing fee.

Great place to learn and offer support to others businesses.

Having a place to meet apprentices and supported inside a structure like this has made interns a possibility for my small business. I just could manage to put it all together before. But with this process, I was able to find great talent and then have great success together!