I’ll begin this long-delayed review with a quick history lesson. Remember the Gilded Age in the late 19th century? It was a time in history with tons of corruption, financial, and social problems being covered up with a gold mask of economic growth? Well, history is repeating itself. Houzz may be pretty on the outside and hiring like crazy, but it's nothing but a bunch of garbage covered in gold, and it will behoove you to read the rest of this review before sending in your application to work here.
On the outside, Houzz seems like a dream come true. I worked there for a couple years, and I remember thinking I struck gold when I was hired after seeing the fully stocked kitchen and beautiful office. We were told we had the opportunity to make well over 6 figures without a problem, and we had many more opportunities to build a career. But be warned, the management at Houzz is spewing nothing but trash out of the mouths on their pretty, deceptive faces.
The sad thing is, I think the company itself had (and perhaps still has) a lot of potential. This potential is being absolutely destroyed by the pathetic joke that is “management” at Houzz. None of these managers have any real experience at Houzz, but as long as you have slapped a smile on your face and become everyone’s yes-man, you’ll move up in the ranks quite a bit. The only thing I ever saw them doing was focusing on their social media, making this seem like the world’s best job. Oh, and how could I forget—they also add the dozens of fake 5-star reviews on Glassdoor which all seem quite similar, and will probably be sandwiching my truthful review very shortly. Those are direct orders from the person leading the OC office, but I’ll get into that disaster of a person in a moment. Don’t ever dare to ever complain about anything or question something in this office—you’ll pretty much be blacklisted and will ruin any chance (if you even care) of moving up. Moreover, the goals at Houzz are ridiculously unrealistic, and I could probably count on my fingers how many people actually meet those numbers. Management will probably fail to mention that to you while they’re hyping you up for a job here. If you do want to meet your numbers, you’ll probably need throw your sense of morality in the trash and sell your soul to the devil, since lying is the only way you can sell their advertising platform anymore.
The person in charge of this office is a monster. He has no concern for any of the employees here, and the only thing he’s good at is ordering employees to fill his personal fridge with diet cokes. He’s constantly changing the commission structure and frames it as if you’ll be making more money, but you’re actually getting screwed over. He’ll announce all these “favors” in an office-wide email, and don’t forget to thank him when he emails you all the wonderful things he’s doing for you! The management remembers who is explicitly thankful for his generosity using “reply all”, and if you don’t say thank you, you probably won’t ever get promoted. To add to it, I was at this office long enough to know he’s been in a couple lawsuits for harassing women in the office. And yes, he actually recruits his minions in management to write the excessive, fake, 5-star reviews you've likely read by now. I've witnessed it myself.
Upon quitting, I learned from HR that the turnover rate at this office was pretty high (shocking, I know), but I'm probably not allowed to post that information here. Either way, I doubt it’s changed. You probably won’t be able to find out if that’s been updated though, since the whole HR team just quit. My advice, if it hasn’t been clear yet, is to run for the hills. You’re better off working literally anywhere else.
And to finish this little history lesson, the Gilded Age ended with the rise of the Progressive Era, a movement where activists work to reform the corrupt policies and overthrow the businessmen and politicians that created the disaster. Let’s hope Houzz will have its own Progressive Era, and get rid of the clowns running this circus.
