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Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#231

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

NotHereNotThere wrote: post #118
aerovistae wrote: post #16

You don't say! I used to work as an engineer at a truly awful little company, the worst I've been at, and when I left I gave them a scathing review. Not long after, several new reviews popped up. Here are some choice excerpts, get a load of this: > Pros: > For anyone reading these reviews, take it from someone who has been at this company for over 10 years, some people just like to use these review sites as a soundin…

Since you opted to reveal the company's name (Snowbound software), I went ahead and read the reviews on GlassDoor. Your review is very emotionally charged and with very few facts or examples, which makes it difficult to take seriously. Since you were fired I can understand why you would write like this, but it is a bit ironic considering the article is about manipulating reviews. Yours is scathing indeed, but not in…

Individual reviews are ultimately worthless on a site like Glassdoor. You'll never hear both sides.

I've found that it's relatively accurate for bigger companies, though, give the larger number of reviews. Individual reviews are simply 1 data point and worthless on their own. Good employers are often typically awarded in other ways, like local best places to work lists.

Much like on Amazon - more people look at the star rating vs the reviews as the indicator. Sadly these can be gamed, but for the most part I've found major companies to be represented correctly, in my experience.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#232

Post by kortilla »

dlubarov wrote: post #224
siruncledrew wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

FWIW, Yelp advertising has no effect on reviews. Allegedly some sales reps claimed that they could manipulate reviews, but such claims would have been empty threats/promises. This has been tested in court several times; see e.g. the 9th circuit's opinion on Levitt v. Yelp! Inc: > the business owners pled insufficient facts to make out a plausible claim that Yelp authored negative reviews of their businesses (I intern…

Yelp not authoring negative reviews is significantly different than offering tools to hide real negative reviews.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#233

Post by mushufasa »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #17
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #6

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,…

What do you think is the difference in the companies that lose trust and that keep it?

Would you agree with this idea: the companies that keep trust figure out a business incentive that aligns with keeping it?

for example - HackerNews wants the best content to attract smart people to apply to YCombinator, which is where they make money - Wikipedia is a nonprofit, relying on happy users and foundations to donate - Craigslist is effectively a Public Benefit Corporation; They have a noncorporate noncommercial ethos as a closely held entity, and choose not to profit maximize

What do you think Glassdoor should do to align their business with having accurate and trusted reviews?

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#234

Post by NorthOf33rd »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #209
NorthOf33rd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just sat through a company wide "Sensitivity Training" at my company (which I'm very much looking forward to leaving, and leaving a review for,) where "We're a family" was repeated ad nausium. I was a little shocked that this was coming from HR and Staff. It was almost a cultish call and response of bullshit. The reality is, we're not family. I don't have to be sensitive to my family. If I don't like them, I can sa…

You'd probably have more effect mentioning that the sensitivity training is insensitive to people whose families are abusive, especially given significant groups of minorities are disproportionately affected. (Personally as an adult who continues to deal with difficulties regarding abusive family, I would feel highly uncomfortable with "we're a family" rhetoric- this is the exact rhetoric abusers use when abusing the…

You're absolutely right (and also on point for why I prefaced with 'the contrarian jerk in me.') I think I'll email exactly this to HR now.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#235

Post by sbs7 »

RandallBrown wrote: post #226
sbs7 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. How do you buy influence on Reddit or Amazon?

Not sure about Amazon, but this website for Reddit and Quora looks pretty easy. https://upvotes.io

Right, but this doesn't look like Reddit or Quora selling-out, these are just users exploiting the platforms

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#237

Post by newnewpdro »

At a past startup that had become overrun with back-stabbing middle-management obsessed with building their own respective empires and in permanent cover-your-ass mode, regularly throwing people from engineering or operations under the bus, the glassdoor reviews predictably became overwhelmingly negative.

Every all-hands meeting started concluding with requests that the staff make glowing company reviews. It was a scene straight out of the movie Office Space. The first couple times they did this, the Glassdoor reviews would get a bunch of 5-star contrived "Everything's perfect, best company ever." additions within the same day or two. We in engineering and operations knew they were coming out of the sales & marketing departments, since we all wanted to burn the place to the ground thanks to the awful management.

I've seen very similar patterns on other glassdoor company pages. When you see a bunch of positive reviews clustered around the same time period for a company otherwise full of negative stuff, the positive is probably more sales & marketing propaganda, it's their job.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#238

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

rchaud wrote: post #45
alexandercrohde wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Nicely summarized. I see this pattern playing out so frequently that I'm at the point where I'm starting to think no one bothers creating content or communities without an eventual commercial angle that ruins the intent of the first iteration. In terms of your notable exception, I'd say Indiehackers (now owned by Stripe) is still quite good. But perhaps that's because Stripe appears to be pretty hands-off at this poi…

> without an eventual commercial angle

If you're not planning on selling your personal projects, then they're hobby projects.

Once a hobby project no longer becomes a hobby project, it becomes a commercial endeavour.

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