Zillow Employee Reviews about "real estate agents"

Pros

This is mainly a review regarding the Client Engagement Specialist (CES) position. The position is a great way to meet like minded, career oriented young professionals. I thoroughly enjoyed the people I worked with and appreciated their attitudes. In the CES role you get to start at the ground level in a market changing company and interact with many different audiences from website consumers, to real estate agents, to lenders as well as internal departments. The CES position is what you make it. It can be extremely valuable if you take the time to cultivate relationships, build your network and learn more about Zillow Group. My former manager Justin, was one of the best mangers I have had in my professional career. He took the time to listen to me (regarding the good and the bad), he always made time for me and my team and he was always on our side and represented us in a good light. I have since moved on from that role (and stayed within Zillow Group) but if it was not for Justin, I probably would not have my new position within the company.

Cons

Being a CES on the Premier Agent Concierge (PAC) team does come with challenges like any position at any company. PAC was a pilot when I started and grew into a full fledged department within Zillow Group. Now staffing almost 300 employees (including team leads and managers), it comes with growing pains. The job can be monotonous and team leads and managers have a difficult time combating that. You occasionally deal with rude consumers and unprofessional agents. PAC also has long hours and works weekends and holidays so it can be hard to get the time off you want and the schedule does not work for everyone. Zillow Group has a phenomenal culture with company events and perks and PAC member do not always get the opportunity to part-take in those. Management says they are working on it but have never had a successful solution. Much of this has to do with the nature of the job and isn't necessarily a short coming on Zillow's behalf, but they are things applicants should be aware of.

Pros

For me, this job has been a life changing experience. I started at the Trulia office in San Francisco and moved to Irvine during the merger. I was unsure that I was making the right decision but I am SO glad I did! I never thought I could be apart of such a huge company and still feel important and supported by smart, talented leaders.They have an open door policy that they actually live by! Not only does this company treat their employees better than any job I've had before (the benefits are crazy good) they take care of the clients and are constantly coming up with new and innovative ways to help real estate agents grow their business by delivering the best product in this industry, hands down. And not to mention, the happy hours, team events, trips to Seattle for our holiday party - all icing on the cake. I am honored to be apart of this company and hope to have a very, very long career here.

Cons

typical of any sales job, its a competitive grind but if you love the thrill of a sale and will work hard to get it, then you will love it.

Pros

The best thing about this company is you get free food all day, and catered lunches on Fridays and randomly throughout the month. There's no dress code,decent base pay. Games and bonuses.

Cons

If your seriously considering working for this company you should read this. The job sounds really great at first, your told you have an opportunity to make 6 figures a year and you get a competitive base, which isn't bad. What they DON'T tell you is if you don't hit quota which by the way is ridiculously hard to hit every month since most of the product your selling is sold out, they will literally fire you after 2 months of not hitting......Your quota increases each month which is called your ramping period. you literally can never take a vacation, get sick, etc.... Doesn't matter if you get 3 weeks of vacation time., the job gets easier is a load of you know what, if you increase sales goals how can it get easier. On top of that you have to have a minimum talk time for 210 minutes, the problem with that is you will spend most of the day leaving voicemails which are about 1 minute each, you literally have to push through a call to talk to someone which gets difficult because most real estate agents don't want to talk to you, they get the same call all day by everyone else, also forget about breaks and lunches or you will be there all night trying to hit call time, call time can only be accomplished by working through breaks and lunches and a little extra after work hours, the reps that hit it talk to there old clients they have known for a while, the problems is if your new you don't have that luxury.The reps who do well are the ones who been there for a year that have a large book of clients ( by the way there are literally 15 reps who been there that long), they just call there old clients and up sell them, this is easier for them because product was plentiful, and easier to sale when they started,, and most of these reps are burned I've seen reps making good money quit, that should tell you something. The worst thing is the turn over, they literally have a sales class every month to replace reps , I guess this shouldn't matter, but its show's instability, and that's a turn off especially if your looking at this as a long term career.. I think most people quit because they simply run out of gas, there is no balance with personal and work life, this is the most intense sales job, and I have a extensive sales background, most reps have anxiety working here, it will do that to you, and you will have to deal with it everyday . The main thing that shocked me is how unprofessional it is, managers use a ton of profanity, and have questionable activities that ill keep to myself, which made me lose respect for a select few, you should look at a person in authority for comfort and reassurance and guidance, there a bunch of cheer leaders who will only talk to you and give you a high five or recognition if you make a sale, other than that, they are not that approachable no managerial skills at all, that may be do to the fact there all recent college students with no leadership background . I'm writing this because I have seen many good people lose there jobs or get stressed and quit. I feel if I can help someone before they consider working here it was all worth it. I encourage you to ask lots of question before you join this company. There are great sales jobs with less stress and a better quality of life.

Pros

Zillow has great company benefits, lots of free snacks, and good base pay. The Seattle building is great and has wonderful views.

Cons

Quotas are very hard (increasingly hard) to hit and turnover on the sales force is very high. It is a very pretty pretty boiler room. You make tons of calls all day everyday, and real estate agents are not the most fun people to talk to... Talk time is set high, however it is nearly impossible to hit is as a new employee. At least 90% of the calls I made were voicemails leading to a very repetitive job.

Pros

We get to work with an innovative team of sales people and account managers in growing Real Estate agents businesses. The opportunity to grow and be more involved in the upper echelon of the company is huge.

Cons

There are really no cons to this job

Pros

If you want to be challenged, work in a company that has high expectations (and high rewards), be surrounded by ridiculously intelligent people, do innovative and cool things, make a difference in the lives and careers of real estate agents and brokers and have fun while you're doing it, then work at Zillow. If you want to slack off, not be trusted or listened to, have no input in how things are done or work in a place that doesn't respect your contributions, then look elsewhere.

Cons

... Hmmm, there's a 20 word minimum for this field. How about, "Sometimes the view of Puget Sound from the high-rise office space is distracting." Sorry, that's all I have.

Pros

Managers are always supportive. They can always help with any problems you run into and you meet with them weekly. They help you with everything.

Cons

You work in a call center. It is hard work. Real estate agents call in with an issue and you have to help them solve their problem if possible. You have shift changes every 6 months based on your metrics. They are a usually fair process but it is hard to change your schedule every 6 months.

Pros

Great benefits package. All of your medical is paid for, and they also give you an ORCA card so you can get downtown. Great atmosphere. They keep the kitchen stocked with good food, and you occasionally get free lunch from a catering company. Most of the people there are cool.

Cons

Their turnover rate is super high for inside sales, and they kinda dont like to talk about it. Of the 12 people in my training class, 1/2 of them quit within 2 months. We had a really great trainer, and we also had a really bad trainer. She would shush people like she was putting a niece in check, and I always wondered why none of her superiors ever addressed her on how unprofessional she was. They do give you free lunches often, but you pretty much eat them at your desk because they really frown on someone actually taking a lunch break. One of my fellow classmates was asked if he was ok because he took a 45 minute lunch once. They want you to be over 210 minutes on the phone each day which is arbitrary if your making sales. Ive seen and overheard plenty of top sales people barely pick up a phone all day or go over an hour on the phone. They do threaten to take away your inbound calls or emails if you dont meet your time quota, which will ultimately make it harder to make more sales. Everything is transparent so you can see peoples sales, minutes and call time anytime you want. They want people to be competitive and make that hot sale. Which is the opposite of what the CEO preaches. We were told to respect that we are asking for real estate agents hard earned money, but when they listen to your calls and critique you for not making a one call close, it makes you wonder what really is the quality of the relationship to the customer. Lastly, taking time off is not the best thing to do. It's highly frowned upon, because if your on vacation your not at your desk making sales. End of the month is especially a big NO NO. If your a top earner....your chances probably improve a little.

Pros

Free lunch on Fridays, great benefits, gym reimbursement, free snacks.

Cons

I stayed around 6 months. At first, everything was great; they do the old smoke and mirrors trick- free lunch! gym reimbursement! tons of $$ if you hit quota! But the reality is: everyone is extremely stressed about hitting quota and it creates a negative office environment. The well is very poisoned here. I felt like after a month of training and traveling to Seattle, the smoke screen was gone and I realized I had made a mistake accepting an offer. You basically have to hit quota 3 times or you're gone. The quota is pretty high at $8,000 and you're selling to real estate agents that either hate Zillow and have burned by the product before or don't have the money to buy it. A lot of people I know are 'on plan' meaning they have to hit 3 months in a row or they're gone, and only 2 out of the 7 people I trained with are still employed here (by choice or not). I personally left because the stress and lack of job security wasn't worth it. None of the managers came and said goodbye to me when I put in my two weeks (which, they tell you to wrap it up within 10-15 min of giving notice, but at least they pay you for the two weeks), which is whatever, but just contributes to the 'you are extremely replaceable and ultimately don't matter here' sales culture. I could probably go on, but if you're on the fence about applying...don't. It's monotonous, some managers can be micromanagers, and it just really sucked to work here. Although I took a pay cut at my new job, I feel so much happier and less stressed.