Got sold the dream, ended up a nightmare - Inside Sales Consultant Zillow Employee Review

1.0
14 Mar 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

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.

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Zillow Response
12y
Thank you for your feedback. I'm sorry to hear about your experience at Zillow. There's no question that sales is a hard job anywhere, and you're right that we demand a lot from our team. I speak with new salespeople every few weeks and I always tell them that this job is hard, especially right out of the gate. It's hardest at first because they don't have any existing clients from whom to draw confidence in the product; they can't reach into a bag of anecdotal successes and use them to soldier on when they're having a hard day. I take solace though in the fact that we have a lot of very successful salespeople here from all walks of life and from a variety of prior experiences. So I know the job is doable, and I know that many people are very successful at it. It's not for everyone though - I will concede that point.

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In sales, job can change often. For example: I was making good money and excelling because I am a relationship Sales person. Then they changed it to where you get the sale, and instead of being able to grow that account via that relationship you just broke into, you have to pass it to an account manager and go back to cold/robo calling. You "book" of business you recive to prospect from is a lottery. I received a book of prospects/accounts that most of the were low income, or senior living properties. They don't have a budget and have a line of renter on a waitlist. No way to convince them to spend money on advertising but you still have the same quota.

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Zillow Response
3w
Thank you for sharing such a detailed perspective. We understand that frequent changes to roles, account ownership and business priorities can have a real impact on relationship-building and the day-to-day experience in sales. We’re glad to hear compensation was a positive part of your time at Zillow, and we appreciate you being candid about where the model and structure felt frustrating. Feedback like yours helps us better understand how these changes are experienced across teams as the business evolves.
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