Pros
Gosh where to begin.. After working at Yelp as an AE for almost 2 years I've decided to move on to a new gig. I realize a lot of these responses on here are emotional and I am going to try to keep mine as objective as possible so that everyone can be as informed as possible. Starting with the good.. The job really is what you make of it. Sounds cheesy but its true. Despite a lot of the negativity you might hear around the AE role at Yelp, it isn't a bad place to start a career in sales. Training is good. 2 Months of paid training. Most future employers know of Yelp and a lot know what a grind the job is and respect your experience. (Though some can be turned off by it) Managers and Directors are, for the most part, supportive and genuinely want you to succeed. Very team oriented. You can easily make friends and meet people and it's nice to be around people who are going through the same grind as you (misery loves company, right?) The culture in general at Yelp is great. Very unique to a company of this size and something to be cherished because you probably wont work in a cultural environment quite like this again in your career. Benefits are decent, snacks can get old but they're not bad. Promotional opportunity isn't bad. You can actually become a manager or go to upselling current advertisers (Local Client Partner) in 12-18 months which is pretty quick - as long as your a great producer. You will also never get fired at Yelp. As long as you don't do something stupid, you're fine. I have seen reps who miss quota month after month after month. Yelp rarely fires people for poor performance. People quit so much that Yelp can't afford to fire people who do actually want to stay. Good work life balance. 40 Hours a week, weekends are yours. Transparency is pretty high too. Not a lot of politics. But to get anywhere your directer does have to know/like you. Office is in a pretty nice spot in SF, and the office itself is pretty cool. Nice rooftop!
Cons
There's no sugar coating it... This is a straight call mill. Hundreds of reps calling all day. There is no strategy, or finesse involved, you are just dialing down 70+ calls a day. Every day. Every week. Forever.... Intellectually curious and critically thinking individuals need not apply. The monotony of the job will beat those traits out of you. Beyond that...The obvious big one is the pay. The base pay starting at 40K (It was 36K when I started at Yelp) is just not competitive in SF. No one is expecting to get rich as an entry level AE at Yelp, but Yelp should at least pay a comfortable wage that is comparable to other AE/SDR roles. Management explained this in a Q&A saying paying more "Just doesn't work with Yelps economic model" and assured us that "That's not a spin." Uhhhh, OK... Whatever that means. If you don't want to pay us more fine, but don't act like it would be impossible to do so. Commission structure is awful. In my opinion, even worse than the base itself. You have to close several deals in a month before you even start earning any commission. I closed tens of thousands of dollars for the company every month but because of the way the commission is structured I'd usually never make more than a couple hundred bucks in commission, if even that. Yelp knows the majority of reps wont break the threshold in a month - or if they do they barely will - and the structure is set up that way so Yelp keeps as much $$$ as possible. Even if you hit your quota of 20K every single month for a year - which the vast majority of reps wont - you're taking home an extra 12K BEFORE taxes. Most AE jobs averaging your quota over the course of the year means you will almost double your base salary. But nope not at Yelp. The job itself is pretty soul sucking. Every sales job has its challenges and grinds but few are as high volume and as prone to burn out as Yelp. For what it is worth this does thicken your skin and help you grow in a lot of ways, but it is a drain and sometimes you wonder why you are subjecting yourself to this day in and day out. Most of the businesses on Yelp have been called by Yelp for years and will either get mad at you, hang up on you immediately or just straight up tell you they have absolutely no interest. Some of them can be down right rude. The approach Yelp teaches is very aggressive too. We don't take no for an answer. Keep asking them to get in front of their computer until they hang up. I'm all for being assertive but sometimes the level of persistence Yelp encourages feels over the top. The product we are selling isn't a good fit for a decent amount of businesses we call but are still expected to push for the close. Managers and leadership will rave about how amazing Yelp ads is. How its God's gift to business owners and its far and away the best advertising option available. In reality, for a lot of territories and a lot of businesses it isn't a good fit and it isn't going to work. You will see for yourself when you've been on the job for a while. There's always risk when it comes to advertising so I'm OK with there being no guarantees, but when we are knowingly signing up a business that is almost guaranteed to not see success, it doesn't feel good. One positive though is if you can sell Yelp Ads successfully, there are few things that will be harder to sell in future sales roles. Management... You can also feel very micromanaged. It depends on your manager to some extent but in general there's strict start and stop times for the day. Some managers will question you if you are a minute late getting in. Yes. literally 1 minute. I've seen it happen. I've had a manager ask me where I was going when I would get up to use the bathroom., ect. This type of behavior is not normal. A lot of AEs this is their first job (as it was for me) so they don't know any different but most jobs will afford you more autonomy than this. Another negative is the limited opportunity there is for people to explore other positions at Yelp. Your only real options are to become a manager or go LCP (local client partner - upselling current advertisers) - and you can only do those things if you are a top rep. If your just an OK or average rep who has been there for a while - even if you are well liked by management, have a good attitude, have other skills that could be of value, ect - you're pretty much stuck. It's frustrating. In the interview process Yelp stressed how open they are to AEs exploring other positions outside of sales at Yelp. In reality these opportunities are few and far between. This is your warning. If you're considering the AE job at Yelp because you want to try to get your foot in the door then move laterally to marketing, recruiting or some other area at the company, don't take this job. You will be in for disappointment. Overall, if you have no experience and are interested in sales Yelp is worth considering. If you graduated from college (A surprisingly decent amount of people at Yelp didn't) and you got a decent GPA and have some solid internship/work experience, you can probably do better.