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Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

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11–17 of 17 posts

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#11
It could be.

From HR perspective it might be the best place to work.

I would look at glassdoor.

Realize it could be great and awful depending on where you work. HR could be great while IT could suck. I interviewed at a place that on glassdoor was listed very well. But when I examined the reviews in detail. Everywhere BUT IT had nothing but praise. IT was a dumpster fire, probably why they were hiring.

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#12
It's both green and yellow. Green because they actually care. Many places just abuse workers and tell them to be grateful.

Yellow because it has to be said. It's probably trying to convince someone. Most of the time it's just HR trying to convince their boss.

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#13
I have no proof of this, but it feels like it’s pay-to-play. I assume it’s a way to attract talent and make customers feel good. Current employees shouldn’t need an external poll to tell them if people are happy or not.

Where I work is almost always on these lists. In my experience it is highly dependent on department. I didn’t realize this until transferring to an office that had very few IT workers. Everyone in IT seemed miserable, while everyone outside of IT seemed extremely happy. I once made a rather sarcastic and cynical joke in the elevator to someone in a customer support role and it went over like a led ballon… but that was the language of everyone I worked with in IT. It was wild to me how two departments sitting 50 feet from each other could have such drastically different cultures. On town halls, everyone in the chat is brimming with company pride, meanwhile the side chats from people in the IT org are full of cynicism and sarcasm, with everyone trying to understand if these people are real or just bots… but I think they’re real.

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#15
I think it’s kinda one of those YMMV metrics. I work for a large company around 80-100k employees and they are ranked on this list. The business unit I’m in is amazing and I truly feel that it’s a great place to work. But ask someone in a dying business unit how they feel and they’ll say they’re overworked and understaffed.

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#16
Its meaningless cause every single place I worked at had labelled itself a "Great^TM" place to work at, but I only was kinda happy at one, and the other two were toxic hellholes.

Glassdoor, Indeed and Blind are more reliable. Also word of mouth.

Re: Ask HN: Companies that advertise being a "best place to work", is it a red flag?

#17
"Best place to work" awards are marketing, not data. No company that's actually great needs to advertise it their employees do that for them. When you see these plastered everywhere, it usually means they're compensating for something (turnover, bad Glassdoor reviews, competitive market). At the end of the day, trust employee retention rates over PR campaigns.
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