More Cons than Pros - Search Engine Evaluator Appen Employee Review

2.0
Mar 5, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is good. I was making $13.50 an hour. The work is steady, a minimum of 20 hours per week and a maximum of 25.

Cons

They constantly test you. In order to get hired you need to take and pass an exam that has 50 questions. They provide the materials to study but the test is hard and tricky and they give you two chances to pass it. Even if you pass and get hired the testing doesn't stop there. While you're evaluating search engine results they give these little tests disguised as search engine results called RTAs or Real Time Audits that you rate and after you rate it it will tell you if you were correct or incorrect and these go to your score and if you get too many wrong you're taken off of production and put on a service level review and have to take the same test you took to get hired and if you don't pass it you're terminated. This constant testing can get stressful and frustrating because as an evaluator you know that in order to keep your job you can't give too many wrong answers and this pressure is constantly on you. The real kicker is that these evaluations are based on opinion and Butler Hill treats their opinions like they're facts and the evaluators and the people from Butler Hill who give the tests won't always agree because these evaluations are based on opinion not fact. The system will go down sometimes because of technical problems and they'll have you work on a different project temporarily and you are also tested on those different projects as well.

Explore other reviews about Appen

5.0
Dec 2, 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The work tasks are relatively clear, and my colleagues are very friendly and always offer help when I don't understand something. The company's policies and culture are also very transparent.

Cons

Sometimes due to urgent work delivery timelines.

1
5.0
Sep 28, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Working at home on the computer.

Cons

Lack of proper communication. No phone communication whatsoever, only by sending in tickets and emails. They hired me for a project for me to review advertisements and I worked hard at this task and always looked back at the materials as a guideline to keep all my answers as per how they want them to be. However, this was not good enough for them and I was retested. Of course, I knew they would fail the retest and fire me immediately. In addition, I have been putting in my house on my time sheet and they have not paid me once. They claim I will be paid for the hours I billed for but I have not seen any money yet. I am giving up on seeing any pay and my working with Appen has been a total waste of my time when I could have been putting in my efforts working for someone else.

166
avatar
Appen Response
8y
We’re very sorry to hear about your negative experience with Appen! Please feel free to contact us at feedback@appen.com; we would love to hear more information about your situation in hopes that it will help us improve our processes. - HR Manager
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All