HauteLook Reviews

Current Employee – been working at HauteLook

Pros – Exciting, fast growing company with a lot of fun, energetic young people. Lots of opportunity for advancement. Central downtown location.

Cons – HR is heartless. Think Catbert the Evil Director of HR from Dilbert. Not really funny. They hire the best and the brightest to solve really tough problems, don't listen to them, then when the job is finally done, they lay them off and try to make it seem like their fault. Watch out!

Advice to Senior Management – Start caring about your people and the bottom line will improve not the other way around. Read some management books: People are your greatest asset,

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook

Pros – Fast growing company with more stability than other flash sale sites like it
Free cupcakes
Normal 9-6 schedule

Cons – Salaries are not competitive with industry standards
Promotions are based on personal relationships rather than merit
Performance review process a joke
Extremely high turnover means that the longer term employees are the least competent
Young workforce means that employees are often inmature and inappropriate, without intervention from management or HR
Very few opportunities for growth or development
Very little vacation time- in order to have a vacation many employees take unpaid days
Next to no variety - you'll be working on the same projects day in and day out

Advice to Senior Management – Beef up your HR department to effectively recruit, retain and support higher quality talent

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook full-time for more than a year

Pros – It's great if you're new in the industry and need to get experience, backed by Nordstrom, employee discounts

Cons – Poor management all around, it functions like a sweat shop practically. As a writer there is no room for creativity at ALL, also there really isn't much potential for moving up, very high turnover and poor employee morale. They're growing at an exponential rate which is good for business, but not employees. Only plan to put in a year or 2 there.

Advice to Senior Management – Work on giving employees more incentive to be promoted, plus pay better. All wages are well below industry average.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook full-time

Pros – Part of a big upcoming business in E-Commerce and Flash sales- Nordstrom Conmpany

Cons – no privacy to work on projects and concentrate

Advice to Senior Management – make changes as required

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook full-time for less than a year

Pros – Very generous in the provision of resources for your work

Cons – Company mistakenly believes that "culture" and "cool" equates to success. Just because they provide what net cretins want in terms of cheap overstocked products that this amounts to a company that is "significant" and justifies aggressive deadlines as well as an upper-management culture of being obnoxious and self-assured.

Advice to Senior Management – Quit stroking yourselves your company is just a retailer it does not do anything of importance.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Occasional catered lunches.
- Fast growing company means stability in a tough job market.
- Pretty good insurance packages
- More organized than other companies I've worked at
- A starter job that gets your foot in the door of fashion.
- Not a lot of overtime is needed overall.

Cons – - Not much room for advancement. I'm not just speaking as a disgruntled former employee either, my team was close and honest with eachother about our concerns and we all wanted out.
- Nepotism runs rampant. People with less experience and skills will surpass you due to being hired by their friends. Honest hard work goes unrewarded.
- Pay is well below industry standards. I saw this as a fast growing startup with room for advancement so I overlooked it but they aren't a startup anymore and I like to think it's due to the hard work of people like me who had been there early helping the company take off. We all celebrated each round of investments we got with fake smiles, because employees don't see a dime of it outside of congratulatory cupcakes. We were bought by Nordstrom and still no change.
- High turnover rate. With the combination of low pay and no personal growth, people leave frequently. This also means that the company is mostly run by really young unaccomplished people.
- Vacation and sick time is not adequate.
- Work was boring and not fulfilling.

Advice to Senior Management – Do a company wide audit of salaries and actually measure them against industry standards. You'll see that you fall short.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook

Pros – wish I could give 2 1/2 stars because its not the worst place to work. The people are generally nice. Straight 9-6 not a ton of overtime needed. Company has workplace outings and employee meetings which are a sincere attempt at creating a open, fun team oriented environment.

Cons – Company was bought by Nordstrom and there was a level of unspoken tension about the acquisition that made the work environment a bit oppressive when I was there. The pay is on the lower side and consequently there is a lot of less experienced employees running the place (probably because of the pay) which makes for a slightly juvenile workplace. There isn't a lot of experienced mentors for the younger employees.

The worst part in my opinion is they do not really value, attract or retain really talented people and the best talent systematically leaves, (one way or another.) I worked in the creative dept which is basically a production mill. My boss was s a competent manager but definitely towing the company line of mediocrity for the sake of a job. Really talented Photographers, Designers will not be happy here and will not last long. I noticed this in other departments as well as an unusually amount of respected employees announced they where moving on. Most of the people that I worked with have gone on to bigger and better things as well.

Bottom Line:
 the turnover track record speaks for itself. I've never worked a place where I've seen so many people voluntarily leave in such a short time. This is a starter job, stop gap or place to settle. Anyone with strong talent and ambition know what your getting yourself into

Advice to Senior Management – hire, listen to and pay for talent

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook

Pros – -Occasional catered lunches
-Despite little paid vacation time, most departments are flexible about unpaid time off when necessary
-Lots of company growth makes for a stable work environment compared to other start-ups

Cons – -Most salaries are below market value
-Little opportunity for upward mobility
-Only two weeks of paid vacation (three after 3 years), and few paid holidays
-No employee discount, just free shipping (but only on select items)
-The internal promotion process is questionable at best, straight-up nepotism at worst
-Employee initiative and innovation are neither encouraged nor rewarded; it's nearly impossible implement new projects or changes below a management level

Advice to Senior Management – Replace the cupcakes and catered lunches with base wages that are reflective of market value, and create incentives that are geared toward building employee engagement and retention.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good entry level position to start

Cons – Unchallenging, does not encourage employees to grow

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HauteLook

Pros – Not micro managed, very relaxed work environment and staff works well together. Fun opportunities for earning credits and lunches and paid time off

Cons – Same work every day can get mundane, customers can be really rude and mean, normally a fast paced environment which can be stressful

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend