Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 163 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#151

Post by andrewflnr »

ransom1538 wrote: post #77
capkutay wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. I've come across colleagues who wrote scathing reviews...typically consistent with their work ethic. Hard to work with, quick to blame others..then it's no surprise when they go to Glassdoor and say 'the people here are morons!' when they get let go for performance reasons.

I understand what you are saying: You hired psychopaths on accident -- but your office is still a great place to work!

The thing about those people (not sure psychopath is the exact term) is that they can pass for decent people for long enough to get hired and entrenched. Hiring a few of them is inevitable at scale. So as long as they actually do get fired (as in GP's case), yes, it can still be a good place to work.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#152

Post by nhumrich »

A lot of people talk about how only upset employees leave a review, but the opposite side f the spectrum also leaves reviews. Really happy employees also write reviews. Distribution goes to the 5* and 1* For example, my current company has 100% 5* reviews on glassdoor. I guess part of what incentives us to leave reviews is that we are hiring like crazy, and want smart/good people to work with us.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#153

Post by ransom1538 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #151
ransom1538 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying: You hired psychopaths on accident -- but your office is still a great place to work!

The thing about those people (not sure psychopath is the exact term) is that they can pass for decent people for long enough to get hired and entrenched. Hiring a few of them is inevitable at scale. So as long as they actually do get fired (as in GP's case), yes, it can still be a good place to work.

Ah yes. The "we hire a few psychopaths now and then" excuse.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#154

Post by devdad »

toast0 wrote: post #135
devdad wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often struggle with app store reviews, because people that are satisfied won't go and rate the app out of the blue. Non-technical users that can't follow an industry standard sign up flow will go completely nuts and give one star with completely insane comments. I used to believe that the "please rate my app"-popup was bad ux. Now I know why it's used. I'd think the same pattern applies to GD. Why would I write a r…

> I used to believe that the "please rate my app"-popup was bad ux. Now I know why it's used. It doesn't make it any better ux though. FYI, the way to make them stop is to say 'yes i'll write a review', wait for the app store to load, and then close it. They usually won't prompt you again. > I'd think the same pattern applies to GD. Why would I write a review when satisfied with my work? I'd have no reason to even vi…

> It doesn't make it any better ux though. FYI, the way to make them stop is to say 'yes i'll write a review', wait for the app store to load, and then close it. They usually won't prompt you again.

No, I didn't mean that it somehow turned into great ux. I meant that I understand the rationale behind it nowadays.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#155

Post by muzani »

ransom1538 wrote: post #77
capkutay wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. I've come across colleagues who wrote scathing reviews...typically consistent with their work ethic. Hard to work with, quick to blame others..then it's no surprise when they go to Glassdoor and say 'the people here are morons!' when they get let go for performance reasons.

I understand what you are saying: You hired psychopaths on accident -- but your office is still a great place to work!

Fun fact though: Actual legit psychopaths are very charming. The biggest symptom is that they have a history of failures and bad referrals. But they are good at convincing you that they were victimized, and that they trust you to bring them to the next level.

Usually at the end of an interview, the interviewer ends up feeling like this person is a great guy, just unlucky. They might have failed a lot, but failure is good in Silicon Valley.

You end up with a person who becomes a core team member because they care the most. But they end up being manipulative assholes who are well connected.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#156

Post by andrewflnr »

ransom1538 wrote: post #153
andrewflnr wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about those people (not sure psychopath is the exact term) is that they can pass for decent people for long enough to get hired and entrenched. Hiring a few of them is inevitable at scale. So as long as they actually do get fired (as in GP's case), yes, it can still be a good place to work.

Ah yes. The "we hire a few psychopaths now and then" excuse.

Ah, yes. The "throw out snarky comments and hope nobody notices I don't have a real argument" tactic.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#157

Post by forg0t_username »

KGIII wrote: post #122
gdilla wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With NLP and ML any company can know who wrote what review if they wanted to. They have all your emails and thus writing style is easily ascertained.

Wouldn't that be easy to foil? I can, and do, write with different styles that depend on the audience I'm trying to reach. I'm reasonably sure I could write entirely unlike my normal writing and appear to be a completely different person. I've done a lot of writing for very different audiences. Am I, perhaps, over-estimating my ability? Are they really that good at determining origin?

Even if you're overestimating your ability, it does not really matter for the case at hand. You can have someone you trust write the review for you.

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#159

Post by oceanghost »

shivaodin wrote: post #30
oceanghost wrote: post #11

Personally, I've worked at companies far worse than described in this letter, and if you think places like this don't exist you're young or foolish, or both. I've seen real emotional, and psychological violence at companies treated as everyday business. As an employee I was threatened for almost any reason whereas managers sexual/racial harassment, rape, yes rape, were dismissed as "he's just like that."

This is painfully accurate. With the recent barrage of sexual molestation cases against employees at Uber, Akamai and the ilk, it is all the more important to develop a transparent platform which rates companies.

You know what bothers me the most about this? There are no laws (in the US) against abuse unless it is motivated by being a member of a protected class (impossible to prove).

What does this say about us? "It's ok to abuse people, just do it equally."

Re: Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?

#160

Post by rajacombinator »

You have to read them with a strong grain of salt and make your own judgment. Most people don't like their jobs and aren't capable of writing a fair and balanced review. But sometimes enough obvious red flags pop up, or too much astroturfing, that can be reliable indicators.
Post reply on HN