Kelly Clarkson - "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)"
Pros
I apologize if my review is lengthy. I wanted to give as much detail about my experience as possible. Hopefully, my review helps someone. My review is only focused on what I experienced during my time with Yelp, things may have changed since. I was employed by Yelp in the Chicago office from the summer of 2018 to February 2019. I can confidently say it was one of the worst times of my life. My experiences at Yelp mirror a lot of what has already been noted by former and current employees. I, like so many, was grateful to get the call that I had gotten an offer. The thought of working for such a large, well-known tech company was exciting. However, there's a clear distinction, YOU don't work in tech, you work in sales. Welcome to your career. I did not study business or any related major that would lead me to a career in sales. I think most people who end up in sales don't grow up thinking, "I can't wait to cold-call people when I'm older." I had worked in another sales role at another company for about a month where the daily metrics/key performance indicators (KPIs) were 200+ cold-calls, 100+ emails, etc. So, learning that Yelp "only" required about 70 to 80 calls a day and 25 emails was a dream. THAT'S WHERE THEY GET YOU (But more on that later)! In the Chicago office, the BASE is $39,000 (before taxes). Why not $40,000? No one knows. To me, a single twenty-something with no kids, this was enough to afford my modest lifestyle. You will have access to a wellness benefit that can cover your gym membership. Use it. You also receive benefits from day one, which is cool, but not super rare for tech companies and startups. "Plus" there's the possibility of earning commission (But more on that later).
Cons
They typically start people on the second week of the month. So that summer, I along with over 90 other people started our career with Yelp. By the time I left the company, a third of my summer group remained. I didn't necessarily see the high number of new hires as a red flag. I figured maybe they wanted to just knock out training for such a large group at once. I came to realize there is such a high turnover with resignations and firings that it's necessary to hire in such high volume. Training is classroom style for two months. The first two months of employment are the most decent. The first week is solely classroom learning and by week two, you're on the phones and "ready" to go! What they don't tell you in the interview (I asked to be sure, given my prior experience at that other company) is about recycled leads. A recycled lead is a lead that has been contacted by prior reps. In some cases, leads have been getting called since 2013. You can imagine they are super excited to hear from Yelp, AGAIN! I understand that in sales, you will have recycled leads, that's a part of the industry. Maybe the prior salesperson didn't sell the product right and this is YOUR chance to say something different to change their mind. Sure, but no, not at Yelp. There is a script (not unlike most sales roles). That's pretty much all the sales language you get. If you come into the role with some experience, you will have a much better time on the phone. If you're pretty much new to sales, good luck. Yelp uses the same exact script for every single business. Calling a contractor? Nail salon? Psychic? Use the script. If you ask your manager (more on that) for valuable feedback or insight on how to approach a certain lead you are not going to get it. Yelp places new hires on teams of about ten. These teams are given a manager who is also in training. YOUR MANAGER IS BEING TRAINED ON HOW TO BE A MANAGER WHILE YOU ARE BEING TRAINED ON HOW TO BE A SALESPERSON. While the job itself is awful, this can truly make or break your experience. If your manager has had previous managing experience, they may actually be able to assist you on your calls. That's often not the case. Most managers are extremely young, which can be a good thing. These are the people that came straight out of undergrad to Yelp, worked as a rep for 1 1/2 to 2 years and then became a manager trainee. Also, it should be noted there is no real trajectory in this role. You work as a Sales Rep for about a year and if you do well you may become a rep for the Mid-Market or National team. Which just means a different volume of cold-calling. Or you could work a year and become a manager in training to manage other people who cold-call. If you survive all of that for years, you may get to be a director. Tough luck if you're a minority though (at least in the Chicago office). Diversity is kind of a problem and an eyesore. There is a "Wall of Fame" where reps who have closed/sold a certain number get their photo (poorly) photoshopped to a European monarch portrait. This is problematic in itself but the only person of color, a Black man, has the smallest photo on this wall. His face is photoshopped onto the iconic "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" and you can barely make out his tiny face in the painting. There are no directors of color and there are few managers of color as well. The overall aesthetic of the office is young, white recent graduates. The environment is very much like a fraternity/sorority house. It can be very cliquey but you will most likely make friends. The people that work alongside you are generally nice, management and leadership are the people to watch out for. You will bond with your friends over how terrible the job is. However, if you leave and they are still employed with Yelp, you will likely not remain friends. Being friends with someone still employed at Yelp is like looking at your friend claim to be “happy” in an abusive relationship. The environment is one of the worst parts of this role. If you have ever experienced any forms of anxiety or depression, you will definitely be triggered. If you are a recovering alcoholic, your sobriety will be challenged. This office has beer kegs (very much like other tech companies). There are "off-site" events that your manager can plan, which basically means go to a bar and drink. You're basically shamed if you don't want to go to these events. On my particular director group, there was an incentive called "Lunch Club." The first six reps to get to 25k in a month get to have Rosé with the director. This office encourages alcoholism as a coping mechanism for the high stress of the job. They blast music loudly, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Please be prepared to hear the same songs every day, sometimes more than one time in a day. I heard Clean Bandit & Zara Larsson's "Symphony" three times in one day. It's a mediocre song at best, imagine being stressed and getting yelled at by business owners, and having to hear "SYMPHONNNNYYYYYYYYYY," multiple times a day. They also played Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" daily, how fitting. I'm afraid you're wrong Ms. Clarkson, what doesn't kill you just slowly eats away at you. Reps are given a territory (some have geographic regions) which basically has two areas or cities. In my time there, I went from Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada) & rural Kansas, to Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota & rural Nebraska, to Garland, Texas & Suburban Chicago. These changes happened in six months. You can imagine how frustrating it is to constantly change territories, especially to go from a decent metropolitan area to a tourist attraction that has closed for the season. All reps are treated equal in regards to their assigned territory. It doesn't matter if you have New York City or San Francisco or rural Alabama. You are expected to meet the same KPIs and quota as everyone. Work starts at 8:30 am sharp. If you have a territory in a different time zone as you, oh well. You're still expected to start dialing, even if businesses are closed. I have never been so micro-managed in my life. You're expected to make 80 dials in a day, get 2 pitches (a pitch is when you run through the entire script with a business owner and show them pricing), and close one deal. If you get to lunch time with no pitches, expect your manager to sit down and look at every SINGLE dial you made. Yelp uses Salesforce which gives them multiple reports which allow them to track everything you do, which of course is necessary but it is overused. My manager would sit and say, "You called this restaurant at 10:00 am on Monday, and you called at 11:00 today, did you leave a voicemail? Are you sending an email with every call?" If you get a voicemail when you call a business, you are expected to leave a message and send an email. Imagine calling someone about 6 to 7 times in two weeks (the sales cycle) and leaving the same message and sending poorly constructed email templates. It's harassment. We are encouraged not to use the Do Not Call (DNC) feature in Salesforce. Even if a business owner says, “Please stop calling me! I am NOT interested,” because they didn’t explicitly say “please add me to you Do Not Call list,” you must continue to call and email them. The product doesn't work. Maybe it did a few years ago but the advertising landscape has changed. There are much cheaper and efficient options out there, e.g. Instagram Ads, Facebook Boost Post/Ads, Google Ads. So, trying to tell a hip young nail artist that her Instagram page with 20,000 followers is not as good as a Yelp page is pointless. I have had customers call and complain to me about the product not working. Luckily, I'm a decent human-being, I didn’t over promise like some of the more successful reps do. This role will really mess with your integrity. If you're calling into a rural area, you will feel like crap for forcing a platform on someone who doesn't need it, just to get a sale. Thankfully, there are no contracts, so people can cancel anytime. This will affect your commission should you ever get over that threshold. Reps are only eligible for commission after closing 30k. After that, each month they must reach at least 12k in order to start earning commission. So, you have to close 42k for Yelp before you receive your first commission check of about $120. Commission is paid out separately from your normal salary and also taxed. Most people don’t make it long enough to see commission. Those who do well will note that their commission checks will be affected as their customers cancel their plans. Yelp billed out commission for six months. The highest you could close a business on was a deal worth $540 a month. Yelp assumed they would advertise for six months. $540 X 6 = $3,240 or 3.24k. You would have to close about thirteen “full-comp” deals before you get your first commission check. Of course, there were cheaper plans that would allow for smaller amounts. But reps are really encouraged to push business owners towards spending fifteen dollars a day (or more) so they can get the full-sized deal. Most people stop advertising after realizing the product doesn’t work. It’s cost-per-click (CPC) and does not guarantee any customers. If a contractor has a $23.00 CPC and someone is shopping around for a contractor getting multiple quotes and viewing multiple businesses (like most people do when shopping around). Yelp will charge that business for each click even if it did not result in a job. Because they paid for the “exposure.” When and if you are closing a deal, you have to tell business owners that you will stay in touch with them if they have any questions about their advertising “campaign.” However, my manager encouraged my teammates and I to not answer the phone for customers or to simply give them the inbound support number. This was common practice throughout the office. Once, I sat on a phone with a business owner for thirty minutes and listened to their complaints, they were charge over four-hundred dollars and didn’t get a single client. What are you supposed to say to a small business owner? I simply said, “I’m sorry.” I felt awful and dirty. There is an in-house barista but every drink they have is acidic tasting and quite frankly, they’re rude (I suppose it’s because they are only paid minimum wage). Reps are encouraged to consume copious amounts of espresso to “keep the energy up.” There is also free food in the two kitchens. However, it’s mostly prepackaged food full of preservatives and nitrates. Good luck grabbing a Walmart Ready-Pac salad or frozen hamburger because all employees take their lunch at 12:00 pm. The office has between 650 - 800 people, give or take firings/hiring/resignations. The two kitchens are like war zones. You spend your hour lunch break waiting twenty minutes to use one of the six microwaves. But while you’re waiting for your first check or you’re in-between checks, the food is helpful. Just make sure in between enjoying free coffee, food, and soft-drinks, you don’t use the bathroom too often. Your manager will constantly want to know where you are. There is the option to do overtime, it's not mandatory, but boy if it’s the last day of the month (LDOM) and you’re leaving at 5:30, expect a dirty look. I witnessed the top performer on my team and one of the top performers in my entire group break down in tears. Management took this happy and bright twenty-two-year-old girl and broke her. What can I, a twenty-seven-year-old who has multiple jobs, say to a young girl in her first role? Recent grads are the target demographic for hiring because they are the most vulnerable. They don’t know that a work environment isn’t supposed to be (this) toxic. Another peer on my team had a nervous breakdown (on his birthday), he was also fired a week later (not a lie or embellishment). In fact, in a week’s time, my former team lost five people, three were fired and two quit (another rep and myself). Work isn’t supposed to be “easy” but it shouldn’t be this hard. My manager and director would simply tell reps who were unhappy that they are not trying hard enough. In fact, my director sent out an email with an article about the health benefits of stress. This is an individual who would have group meetings with all the teams under his leadership just to yell at them. He would constantly walk around the floor and scream at people if they looked unhappy. You will be forced to stand up for “power-hours” and no, Yelp does not provide standing desks. In addition to possibly earning commission, you can earn other perks such as McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts coffee, an off-site with your team to go drink, taking a picture with a musty jersey, or “bragging” rights. So basically, nothing. You will gain or lose weight, depending on how your body handles stress. You will constantly get sick; the stress will make it hard for your immune system. You will age, a year in this role and you will look older and more tired. You will lose motivation to do anything, even on weekends. It will be hard to imagine life before Yelp. Leaving the company has given me such clarity. While applying for other roles, I was given a writing assignment that took me way longer than it should have. I realized that in the months I’d been employed at Yelp, I hadn’t really used my brain for critical thinking. So, after all this you’re still interested in working at Yelp. Best of luck, welcome to your career.
