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A warning about Glassdoor

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Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#151

Post by fl0wenol »

TeeWEE wrote: post #131
DesiLurker wrote: post #98

I have worked for a large company that told employees to go write 5* positive reviews on GD. I suspect it is a common practice. this just provides GD to turn into a Yelp of sorts that can do the 'reputation management' on the side. Sigh, I have come to believe that its impossible for the profit motive companies to stay neutral in long term, esp if thats their main revenue source. I wonder if there is a publicly funde…

Its ok for companies to ask their employees to leave reviews at glassdoor right?

No, it isn't. That's really scummy.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#152

Post by blocked_again »

Quekid5 wrote: post #50
shiftpgdn wrote: post #8

I worked at a mid sized company that was going through a very rough patch (right before the inevitable bankruptcy.) During this time I got a call from a Glassdoor rep who /explicitly/ offered to remove bad reviews in exchange for us moving to a high paid tier and putting up X amount of job listings. Glassdoor is just corporate Yelp.

> Glassdoor is just corporate Yelp. I think this is the inevitable fate of all for-profit review sites which become popular. The incentives just don't align.

Some of the ways Glasdoor can make money by being ethical

* Ask users to sign up for their job seeker plan to see the complete company interview questions/experiences.

* Create an API and charge websites for giving access to their reviews score, salary data etc.

* Charge money for job postings from companies who have decent reviews and want to post on Glassdoor.

* Provide a paid dasbhoard for companies that will give them insights on how to pay employees.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#153

Post by elwell »

sharadov wrote: post #150
elwell wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard that Yelp lets you pay to have bad reviews sorted towards the bottom. I recently listened to a podcast episode [0], where the CEO claimed that is not true. Would be interested in evidence on either side. [0] - https://www.npr.org/2020/09/30/918845338/how-i-built-resilie...

Yelp has class action lawsuits filed against them. Scumbags!

This? https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/03/yelp-finally-d...

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#154

Post by genericone »

munk-a wrote: post #115
berkes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this I get you mean "word of mouth" in a very physical way? As in "my cousin Jane says..."? Because "Word of mouth" over the internet would imply that The Internet still has a big role to play in disintermediation. Would "reviews" from your network, any network, physical, or digital, of people you know, be valuable? I believe that a "review" is only useful if you know the reviewer well enough. Regardless of the…

I don't think it needs to be physical but if I google a company and a big rant about them on reddit comes up coupled with a bunch of positive feedback on linkedin and glassdoor then I'm going to trust the reddit poster more. It might be someone grumping without fair grounds about unfair treatment but that's the only testimonial you can really trust these days.

And if the reddit post is a competitor paid smear, timed with some event, how could you possibly know? In that case, the glassdoor, linkedin, and reddit testimonial have the same weighted value of 0, as neither the quantity nor quality of reviews online can be trusted anymore.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#155

Post by gotoeleven »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #107
everdrive wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online review systems are dead. Surely some must still be valid, but the well is poisoned, and nothing can be trusted.

I would also throw Yelp in there now that they're instituting a form of a social credit system by allowing a user to accuse a business of being racist which then flags the account with a message that says: ‘Business Accused of Racist Behavior’ The end result of this is too obvious to require elaboration.

Hopefully we can extend this helpful system to every day life, maybe with some sort of reddish lettering system whereby we attach a symbol to the clothes of those who have committed an -ism or a -phobic.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#156

Post by ProAm »

nickbauman wrote: post #80
everdrive wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online review systems are dead. Surely some must still be valid, but the well is poisoned, and nothing can be trusted.

We've come full circle. Word of mouth is all you can trust. The Internet as a great "disintermediation" medium is over.

> We've come full circle. Word of mouth is all you can trust.

5 years ago on HN someone would have said this is an industry ripe to be 'disrupted'. It can't be hard to create a new review site? Easy VC money, an exit within 5 years by acquisition from Yelp or Glassdoor or LinkedIn/MS.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#158

Post by reificator »

ProAm wrote: post #156
nickbauman wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've come full circle. Word of mouth is all you can trust. The Internet as a great "disintermediation" medium is over.

> We've come full circle. Word of mouth is all you can trust. 5 years ago on HN someone would have said this is an industry ripe to be 'disrupted'. It can't be hard to create a new review site? Easy VC money, an exit within 5 years by acquisition from Yelp or Glassdoor or LinkedIn/MS.

If the fundamental problem is trust, are you really suggesting that "it can't be hard to create" that trust?

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#159

Post by bartread »

alisonatwork wrote: post #15

My eyes opened to this after leaving my last company. They announced layoffs shortly after I quit and Glassdoor was inundated with a flood of long, detailed reviews expressing concern and unhappiness around all the issues that had caused me to leave voluntarily. The company's star rating dropped from 3.5ish to 3 and was trending down. Then, mysteriously, within the space of a week, almost all of the negative reviews…

I wonder how new a phenomenon this really is. It's certainly been possible to get reviews taken down for many years.

Some time ago I worked for a company where I did a stint as a technical recruiter before moving into an interim head of IT role to tide them over whilst we hired someone permanent. One of the people I'd been instrumental in hiring whilst I was technical recruiter went on to join the company during my tenure IT.

It turned out that this person was not my - nor the company's - greatest ever hire. They were demanding, complaining, entitled and, above all, lazy. We bought this person a bunch of special equipment, including a ludicrously expensive keyboard supposed to help with RSI. Still, they continued to be obnoxious and lazy, literally doing nothing productive, until they were asked to leave during their probation period because they were basically insufferable.

Said person then went on to post a slanderously inaccurate review on Glassdoor about the company, their manager, and the people they'd been working with in that team. At this time I wasn't particularly happy at the company, for various reasons, but even so, I could see the review was completely unfair and, substantially, a work of embittered fiction.

I was pretty annoyed and felt somewhat responsible given that I'd been part of the team who'd brought them in to the company. So, with little hope of recourse, I contacted Glassdoor explaining the situation and detailing the inaccuracies in the review in a lot more depth - and a lot more specifically - than i've done here.

Now, whilst what I said in my email was accurate, and I had little motivation to lie or paint the company in a particularly positive light, Glassdoor really had no way of verifying that what I'd told them was true. Moreover I wasn't in a role related to hiring. Nevertheless, within a couple of days the extremely negative review had been taken down, and I was grateful to them for taking it down.

With that said, it sounds like what may have started out as a sane policy to handle complaints on a case by case basis has perhaps evolved into something rather less noble.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#160

Post by scarmig »

genericone wrote: post #154
munk-a wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it needs to be physical but if I google a company and a big rant about them on reddit comes up coupled with a bunch of positive feedback on linkedin and glassdoor then I'm going to trust the reddit poster more. It might be someone grumping without fair grounds about unfair treatment but that's the only testimonial you can really trust these days.

And if the reddit post is a competitor paid smear, timed with some event, how could you possibly know? In that case, the glassdoor, linkedin, and reddit testimonial have the same weighted value of 0, as neither the quantity nor quality of reviews online can be trusted anymore.

If nothing else, looking at the history of the account (be it HN, Reddit, or something else) can give you a sense of legitimacy. Of course, even that could be faked or purchased, but if you have someone who seems to have a variety of other interests besides slagging companies, at least right now you can trust that it's a genuine review from a personal perspective.
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