Training- So training consists of 3 days of daycare where the “trainers” teach you how to read a script and basic objection handling. That’s it. You do not learn about the product or account management. It was the worst training I have ever been through and I have had several sales jobs in the past. The trainers do not want to help you and will not go the extra mile to help you out. You are placed on the phones after 3 days and expected to know the garbage product we sell inside and out. You are begging contractors to give you their social, credit card, and agree to spend hundreds of dollars on our product all in a “one call close”. You cannot let them do research because one google search of HomeAdvisor and 20,000 complaints show up as well as the multiple lawsuits pending against us. This brings me to my next point.
The product- HomeAdvisor is a scam in every sense of the word. The product is designed to swipe contractors credit cards without their knowledge. In the script it says we have “16 unanswered leads” in their area, which is a lie if you’re calling some guy in the middle of bumble Alabama. Managers and training managers encourage you to lie and it goes unnoticed by upper management. I am ashamed to say I have lied to hundreds of people to get the sale, but I have to make money too and it’s impossible to sell this product without lying. We tell them (the contractors) we will personally supervise their accounts and they can have 1 / 2 leads a month if they want, or none at all, and that they have full control over their account. They do not. Homeadvisor will bombard them with FAKE leads and swipe their credit card. They will call the dispute these charges but will never, ever get their money back. If they quit, we don’t care because homeadvisor’s philosophy is “there is a sucker born every minute”, thus we will mass cold call and get another man that day to sign up. They know their product is horrible and destroying lives but they do not care, they just want the quick dollar.
The salary/commission - The base is roughly 30,000 a year when you start, a joke if you live in a big city. They give you free lunch and dinner everyday but I rather cook myself and take the extra 4/5 thousand a year. It’s a cop out to pay us less. Now onto the commission. Once upon a time the commission structure was designed to make us as much money as possible but now they designed it to make us as little money as possible. The commission is based on a weekly ramp up, so you have to BEG a minimum of 3 people to sign up in a week just to hit the bare minimum (500$). Most people I know have a hard time getting two or three sales a week let alone four or five. You used to be able to make 80k+ a year here easily but now they designed it so you are making roughly 40-60k MAX.
The culture - If you love coming to work to see people literally wear sweatpants, crop tops, dyed hair, piercings all over their faces, and a load of degenerate drug using losers, come to HomeAdvisor. I’ve personally witnessed multiple managers and directors participate in drug use and get belligerent drunk 3 to 4 days a week. Not to mention how everybody openly has sex with eachother (even in the office). Managers will literally sleep with employees and then not fire them for that reason. Love drugs? Great, outside during breaks you will witness several people crowding around joint on the sidewalk right outside our building. During breaks you constantly see people running to the bars however I can’t blame them because the stress of selling this garbage is too much to bare. LOUD MUSIC blasts from 9-6, which is really nice when the customer can hear it over the phone and butchers the sale for you. The office itself has a 1980s Wall Street sales floor layout that looks like a circus. It’s a nightmare, trust me. You can never get a moment to think to yourself and it lacks any sort of professionalism. They will hire ANYONE with a heartbeat, I literally saw someone come in with sweatpants and a hoodie in an interview and the next week I saw him in the training class.
Everybody that has been here over 1/2 years is smart enough to start moving on to better jobs. They treat their employees like crap and do not care about you as an individual. I like to say they treat us how they treat their customers, terrible. There is no leadership and from top to bottom this place is a scam. If I can save one or two people from taking this job I know I have done better in the world
