Guidebook reviews

4.1

75% would recommend to a friend

(72 total reviews)
avatar

Jeff Lewis

70% approve of CEO

64% positive business outlook

Guidebook has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 72 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Guidebook employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

72 reviews
1.0
Oct 8, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Weekly beerfests / on-site parties Lots of friendly coworkers The lower-level employees are mostly very good people and you will probably make some friends

Cons

Misleading stock options: Unlike most companies, your stock option cliff / vesting won't start until the *next* board meeting, which could be 3 months after your hire date. your offer letter will *not* reflect this. This is shady, if not illegal Turnover: Very high, and highest among the most-talented and most-experienced employees. Lowest among the good old boys who co-founder the company. Management… is out of touch. If literally everyone except 2 high-level managers/execs said "the new version of our software, which as it currently exists earns us millions of dollars, is not ready to realease yet", would you: A) Delay release until it is free of major bugs? B) Start a beta test with a few clients and iterate until they like the new version better than the old version? C) Say 'ship it' and literally *delete* the old version off your servers and forcibly migrate ALL your users to the new version, and when users complain that your software is bad as Windows Vista, you laugh at them and never make the old version available and force your support staff (who tried to warn you of the impending disaster!) to work 11 to 16-hour days *without overtime*? Can you guess which choice the management at Guidebook chose? Yup. Option C. Middle management: I dunno about all the different departments here, but as far as engineering, the culture seems to only value "yes-men" and long ours. Actually talented and experienced engineers are fired or leave. The same thing happened in the Advertising department. As far as customer service (sorry, customer success) the head is a nice guy who nonetheless is powerless as far as actually getting his underlings to be fairly compensated. Product: newer technological foundations, but not actually better. missing features. deleting user data. going offline a few times a day, regularly. Product management: I am incapable of describing this 'con' in a way which does not violate Glassdoor's guidelines. Career: You will be promised opps to advance your career. and then you will be denied them. So in short, i am dying Lastly: everyone is underpaid and again the stock options are not as good as they sound, for multiple reasons. not to mention you will be fired if you are actually worth your salary, going by current trends.

2.0
Feb 23, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I loved Guidebook when I first started on the SDR team. It was my first job out of college, I loved the product and SoMa office and the people were very cool. It was a great place for making friends. I don't regret my experience with this company, but am glad I got out when I did. - Unlimited PTO - Fun/ relaxed work culture - Great place to make friends! Lots of smart people and hardworkers Don't be fooled by the glowing reviews... young people at the company are drinking the coolaid, others are leaving

Cons

- Terrible politics - Pay is well below market average across the company - hiring strategy is essentially to trick new college grads into accepting very low base pay with false promises for OTE - While mid level management down full of great people, I lost a lot of respect for most of top level management in about 6 months; mismanagement is causing a once promising company to quickly decline - Shady numbers, fake success stories - Management tries to get even more hard work out of underpaid and unappreciated employees by making employees feel like we are not invested enough in the company's success - *** Heat broke in the middle of winter and was never fixed for months (employees were wearing full winter gear in the office but heat *mysteriously* worked when we had a visit from potential investors and a client event.)

1.0
Jul 14, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Like many people at Guidebook, this is my first job out of college. On a positive note, I have to say that the people we used to hire were of the highest caliber, and have been some of my closest friends from the start.

Cons

This has since changed, and I can’t say it’s a place I’m proud to be anymore. Before I heard and saw some of the interworkings of the leadership team, I was happy and learning a lot from everyone here. Not only is it a hard fact that everyone at Guidebook is paid well below market rate, but your value as an employee is instantly diminished the second you disagree with upper management. I’ve seen emails to people who have left or gotten fired, threatening them to shut up and trying to scare them into not talking, but at the end of the day these threats aren’t even legal. This is beyond unprofessional. The turnover rate is horrendous. There was a manipulative and obnoxious woman that was hired a year or so ago, but is now gone, which is karma because she seemed to actually get pleasure out of firing people. The other reviewers who said to not believe all the fake 5 star reviews are exactly correct, since our leader accidentally posted a review with his name showing, and was told to delete it. When you really read what he says in them, it’s clear that this “reviewer” is selling you (no cons...really?). If this company isn’t hiding anything, then shouldn’t real employees be posting all those exciting reviews? Maybe they did years ago, but definitely not anymore. The point of this message is not to scare you from applying here, since Guidebook is a great career stepping stone, but only that. I just want you to be warned that things are not always as they seem and the upper management does not care about anything except money. They use people as pawns, strong-arms them into doing what he wants and doesn’t even give chances to the loyal people here. It’s terrifying to watch all of this unfold, since I know everyone is thinking the same thing as me, “am I next?”

Viewing 4 - 6 of 72 Reviews

Glassdoor has 77 Guidebook reviews submitted anonymously by Guidebook employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Guidebook is right for you.