Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#311

Post by southphillyman » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

philbarr wrote: post #184

allenu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, any more details? That must've been cathartic.

It's great to be able to do this but you need to have back ups first. So find a new job whilst "jokingly" suggesting to your boss you need a raise. Then you actually ask for a meeting and a raise and when he/she laughs you off as you knew they would you resign on the spot and go to your new job you had lined up. With the hope that he/she will see their mistake and not treat the remaining employees that way. The probl…

I did exactly this once before, except I gave two week notice. I walked into the meeting knowing I had offer in hand but wanted to give my current employer a chance to do the right thing. The manager literally giggled and told me I may have to leave to get an increase. I had saw this company let several "rock stars" walk over money so I wasn't expecting much, almost felt bad for the manager cause he knew that corporate approach was laughable

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#312

Post by dba7dba » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #156

chaostheory wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imo this is endemic in areas with poor job markets where there's really about 1 or 2 large employers. It's not just time to leave the company; you need to leave the whole area as well.

I'm in an area with lots of employers, but 20 years ago I did some job-hopping (four jobs in four years between 95 and 99), and that STILL comes up as a negative in job interviews. If you bail on too many bad managers, you can find yourself locked out anyway.

>>> four jobs in four years

That does look not so good to me tbh. 2 jobs in 2 years would look ok to me. But I guess it depends.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Post by SolaceQuantum » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

NorthOf33rd wrote: post #234

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If HR ever asks specific groups(as a way to dismiss you), feel free to bring up LGBTQIA+ and CSA (child sexual abuse). That tends to really light a fire under some asses.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Post by ben509 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

thisisweirdok wrote: post #105

iamdave wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just do it and write, "Cons: we're pressured to leave positive reviews here."

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#315

Post by Jach » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #266

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #32

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've had negative reviews flat out removed by a company that was paying glass door for some sort of premium service. You don't even need to pay Glassdoor. At $PREVIOUS_EMPLOYER I managed to get a negative review by an employee who we'd let go removed just by asking them. Don't be too horrified yet because it gets worse: I stand by asking them to remove it. The review was extremely negative and posted by somebody wh…

What changes did you make to the hiring process to better filter such people out?

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#316

Post by skookumchuck » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

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…

Like everyone, I know lots of divorced couples. If you listen to the man, his ex is 100% to blame. If you listen to the woman, her ex is 100% to blame.

So when I hear a rant from someone about their ex, their boss, etc., I nod sympathetically and think to myself "I wonder what that person would say about you."

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Post by mratzloff » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

sbs7 wrote: post #216

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,…

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

Do you trust the reviews on Amazon? Especially from cheap Chinese suppliers? Those reviews come from somewhere.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

#318

Post by throwawaymath » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #255

throwawaymath wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be sued, probably successfully, into oblivion. The terms of service [1] for Glassdoor are pretty clear that you agree to not: Introduce software or automated agents to Glassdoor, or access Glassdoor so as to produce multiple accounts, generate automated messages, or to scrape, strip or mine data from Glassdoor without our express written permission; Copy, modify or create derivative works of Glassdoor or an…

Didn't LinkedIn just lose a court case over very similar anti-scraping terms? Offering something publicly on the internet, then attempting to block certain uses using your ToS seems like Glassdoor being an Indian giver...

Hence my second paragraph, yes. You’d definitely be sued, and it would definitely be expensive. You might not lose.

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Post by formalhaut » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:33 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #231

NotHereNotThere wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

It really depends. I try to view Glassdoor like the way I read amazon reviews.

I'll see a bunch of "good" reviews. They do me nothing.

Yet those bad reviews have a trend that the battery hatch clip keeps breaking off and they had to do hacks to make it work. ... Or the multiple Samsung refrigerator water filter were fakes and leaked all across the floor (0).

In a office setting, it's the similar thing. There will be a lot of good, but the details and consistency of the bad ones are the thing to watch.

(0) https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Da29-00020b-1P-DA29-00020b-Re...

Re: Companies Manipulate Glassdoor by Inflating Rankings and Pressuring Employees

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Post by dabockster » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #280

freedomben wrote: post #84

It's amazing, because I used to (naively perhaps) trust Glass Door reviews. Then I started at Canopy Tax and heard in almost every weekly company meeting, an encouragement to go on Glass Door and rate the company. They would also brag during those weekly meetings about the current Glass Door rating. The "Glass Door" rating was also reviewed in the meeting, with lamenting over any negative reviews that would pop up. A…

What’s amazing is that it’s 2019 and there are still people who trust online reviews written by people they don’t know! Show me one online review system out there that is not gamed in some way by the entities that stand to gain or lose money due to the content in the reviews.

> it’s 2019 and there are still people who trust online reviews written by people they don’t know!

I feel it's an extension of the old "innocent until proven guilty" thing. In the Western world, especially in the United States, we have this belief of trusting unless we are given a very high confidence level reason not to. It's this belief that is being taken advantage of via online review systems. We do not doubt them by default because it would be mean or rude to doubt the entity behind the review (entity meaning person or bot).