Toxic, mediocre, and micromanaging leadership. Stay away! - Anonymous employee Apartment List Employee Review

1.0
13 Sept 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Benefits are great for a startup (monthly home office and fitness reimbursement,  health insurance coverage, etc.) - Most people in non-leadership positions are easy to get along with and kind-hearted

Cons

Management is the crux of the problem with this company. They boast that this is where you can make an impact, but the majority of the time you are put on a retractable leash, manifested in the following ways: - No career growth: The bulk part of your day-to-day is about putting out fires and fixing what is broken with the infrastructure. Your hard work is not appreciated because managers tend to gaslight employees and blow small issues out of proportion in order to downplay their teams' contributions. In addition, leadership generally prefers talkers over doers. Having a presence on Slack is highly emphasized as an indicator of engagement and a critical factor for "recognition". Some managers also constantly pit employees against each other in order to incite unhealthy competition, which is both demoralizing and counter-productive. The truth is that these managers are in such positions not by their leadership capacity but by tenure, so don't expect to learn anything from your managers if you already have several years of work experience. - Finger-pointing: Managers claim that they are there to support you, but when something happens you are more likely to be thrown under the bus first. What they are more interested in figuring out is "who" contributed to an incident than "how" to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. - No accountability: Managers don't know how to properly set priorities and your priorities can change every week. Depending on where the fires are, you end up spending time putting out fires instead of working on what is on your OKR. Instead of acknowledging your hard work on putting out fires, managers would question why you have not been working on your OKR; they then use this as an excuse of you not meeting expectations and hence not meriting a raise or promotion. All in all, this is a lead gen business for property management companies. Period. They are touting to be a "marketplace for renters to find a home they love", yet most of the work is not around improving renter experience but pleasing property management companies. Risk aversion, as a result, sums up most of the decision-making. Any new changes that go beyond people's comfort zone would encounter lots of pushback. That is why to this day renters are still required to fill out a lengthy questionnaire before they could see any apartment matches, only because this is a very "sensitive" area to change. Don't get fooled by the review ratings. You will uncover many problems and find that the company is not as great as it seems.

avatar
Apartment List Response
4y
Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective. We really value employee feedback and are very disappointed that we weren’t able to hear your concerns directly and partner with you towards a positive resolution. At Apartment List, we uphold a very high bar for talent and both our individual contributors and managers are hired and promoted based on merit. Manager development is a core priority, and we take this priority seriously. We have launched several manager focused initiatives to help set our managers up for success. While we are deeply sorry about how you felt about your experience, we’d like to share that the experience you have represented in regards to management is not reflective of the wider feedback we have gathered across the company. In our most recent company-wide internal survey, manager satisfaction was overwhelmingly positive, and while this survey is anonymous, we always encourage employees to express their concerns with People Operations so that we can respond proactively. That being said, we acknowledge you did not feel your manager met our high standards, and are disappointed that you did not feel adequately supported during your time with us. Thank you again for taking the time to share your feedback. We take everyone's input very seriously and are always working to create the best possible experience for all of our employees.

Explore other reviews about Apartment List

5.0
20 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Apartment List has a great culture, benefits, people, and product. It's at an inflection point of what is the next strategic move for the business, which means some growing pains, but in an exciting way. The culture is collaborative and people genuinely are happy to help one another.

Cons

Fast paced, ambiguous working environment. Some people thrive in this while others do not. There is a small group of people who are carrying the company.

4.0
9 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Culture and people are great

Cons

Pay isn’t as good as some places but the trade off is worth it

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All