Live data from Hacker News

Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

wsj.com

101–110 of 500 posts

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#101

I've had negative reviews flat out removed by a company that was paying glass door for some sort of premium service. I extensively reviewed the rules and reworded my comments and they were removed yet again. My points were fully factually true and were not anything too untoward (pay raises were promised to members of a new team, they never materialized, most team members left). For what it's worth, Path Forward IT is…

Glassdoor is basically workplace Yelp. It started out useful for job hunting, now it's also a gamed system with pay-for-PR.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#102

Is there any service that actually is fair? When Ubisoft makes Forbe's "Best Places to Work" I don't feel like I can trust anything to make an objective measure other than organic word of mouth and simply experiencing it for myself.

It's the natural cycle of the internet. 1. Be a nobody company 2. Utilize generous user content to build up an important knowledge-base/economy 3. People begin to trust the information in the system and come to rely on it 4. Sell-out entirely and make a lot of money letting people buy influence 5. People abandon the site realizing it has no signal anymore (Digg, Reddit, Amazon, Glassdoor, experts-exchange, facebook,…

You forgot Yelp. :-)

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#103

My approach to Glasdoor reviews is similar to my approach to Amazon reviews... ignore the positive reviews, and focus on the negative ones. Now, "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence", but a large number of negative reviews is a strong "stay away" signal. A small number of negative reviews is, more or less regardless of the positive reviews, a "neutral" indicator to me.

Right, or a review that includes positive and negative feedback is also more credible.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#105
post #96

Yeah this happened at my old employer. They got one bad (warranted) review and told everyone to get on their phones (off the company network) to give good reviews. They'd push this initiative occasionally. I reported it to Glassdoor and they never did anything about it.

They'd push this initiative occasionally. I wonder if anyone has any experience in flat out refusing to participate in this sort of thing. I did it once, but was already on my way out the door/in my two week notice period and HR would ask me once a day, every day for almost two weeks to write a review before I left. I say "almost two weeks" because I finally told the HR person that I would be talking to the local wor…

I never participated. They had no way to enforce it without being really creepy. Younger employees always did it, a lot of people generally felt like they weren't doing their job if they said no.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#106

I've had negative reviews flat out removed by a company that was paying glass door for some sort of premium service. I extensively reviewed the rules and reworded my comments and they were removed yet again. My points were fully factually true and were not anything too untoward (pay raises were promised to members of a new team, they never materialized, most team members left). For what it's worth, Path Forward IT is…

I don't understand why you would want to be a shitty boss.

Not only is it good karma but it's good business.

Loyal employees are awesome. Any bump in the road and they have your back.

Maybe when you're some massive megacorp it makes sense but I hope I'm never to the point where I have to run a mathematical calculation on whether it makes sense to treat people with respect.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#107

Yeah this happened at my old employer. They got one bad (warranted) review and told everyone to get on their phones (off the company network) to give good reviews. They'd push this initiative occasionally. I reported it to Glassdoor and they never did anything about it.

For Glassdoor, it's your word against that of whoever wrote the positive/fake review you're complaining about. It's a tie unless there are some signals they could use to infer that your complaint is more legit than that positive review.

Yeah I get that. In retrospect I should have forwarded the emails to Glassdoor directly.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#108

I've had negative reviews flat out removed by a company that was paying glass door for some sort of premium service. I extensively reviewed the rules and reworded my comments and they were removed yet again. My points were fully factually true and were not anything too untoward (pay raises were promised to members of a new team, they never materialized, most team members left). For what it's worth, Path Forward IT is…

> negative reviews flat out removed

And if wording or details were the issue, they could at the very least leave the review score, as a proof of their good faith. Nope.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#109
I still do think reviews are the best way to get aggregated feedback on established (companies, products, restaurants etc).

In order to normalize reviews for myself, I try go through them and sort by least and quickly skim a few reviews to see if it was something that was very personal/one-off to the affected person or more systematic and then it gives me a better picture. Obviously, no perfect way but would love to hear if/how others take review feedback into consideration.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#110

I won't name the company, but I watched a prominent startup CEO stand in front of the entire company and angrily scold everyone about bad reviews on Glassdoor. He didn't understand why someone would post a negative review online instead of just coming straight to him.

Was this company based out of Pittsburgh perhaps? Because I've heard of the same.
Post reply on HN