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A warning about Glassdoor

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Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#161

Post by mlrtime »

everdrive wrote: post #51
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…

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

Trust is valuable, build your business , give it away for free, build trust, then sell out.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#162

Post by dllthomas »

fugazithehaxoar wrote: post #11

Luckily, it's pretty easy to spot fake reviews on Glassdoor. Unfortunately though, it kind of ruins the experience for most people. The two big mobile app stores have been flooded with spam reviews for over 5 years now unchecked. For those that know how to spot fake reviews, it's easy to tell which apps are not legit. For most consumers though, they just believe what they see.

So... it's pretty easy to find reviews that you are confident are fake, and you're probably right about most of them.

But that only leaves us an uncorrupted signal if, given a review you have deemed authentic, it actually has a good chance of being so. Do you know that that's the case? How?

I'm not sure it's true in your case, but statements like this are often made when people don't realize they're (implicitly) marking their predictions against those same predictions.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#163

Post by munk-a »

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.

I wouldn't - glassdoor and other moderated discussion boards allow for these smear campaigns to be weeded out but if their usage declines significantly then smear campaigns are going to get a lot more effective again.

I'm not saying the point I outlined above is the best outcome for the world, it's just the outcome for me and it's pretty regrettable that we're sliding back into it.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#164

Post by mlrtime »

elwell wrote: post #121
sharadov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are becoming Yelp.

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...

It's even worse than that, Yelp has been accused and proven that they write or have written bad reviews themselves.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#165

Post by offtop5 »

Wouldn't surprise me if informally once a company pays to become an " Engaged Employer" , they get rid of bad reviews.

The amount of fake reviews here reminds me a bit of Catfishing ( check the FTC lawsuit against the Match Group- they own practically all dating apps). The root problem is your depending on a company which has a vested interest in lying to you.

Glassdoor makes money when companies post jobs , you have a very real conflict of interest if Jill and Joe post about how shitty their employer is. Yet the same employer is spending 5k a year to post ads.

I've been ignoring Glassdoor reviews for a bit though. Even word of mouth can be useless, a family member got fired from company X. My experience with company X has been great. The same family member can't hold a job for more than 6 months.

In all fairness the people most likey to cry about an employer on Glassdoor are bitter with sour grapes. After I've had a bad experience , I'm on to the next glass of wine.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#166

Post by munk-a »

scarmig wrote: post #160
genericone wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Other folks might reply differently but my honest response is - I'm not going to do that. When I've switch jobs I've never had a shortage of offers so if I saw that post it'd raise a flag for me and I'd be less inclined to follow up with that company - other really positive factors might swing it back or not. This means I might end up missing a great opportunity but job searches are never exhaustive and we all just try to do the best we can to evaluate different positions with our limited resources.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#167

Post by KingNoosh »

celdon25 wrote: post #3

In 2016, I wrote a scathing, negative Glassdoor review about a company that truly was a developer sweatshop. It had only 1 review at the time. The review got close to 50 upvotes and was one of the top Google search results for the company name. A second negative review came up not too long after that. Within weeks, the company had at least 20 5 star reviews added to this. The entirety of the company was no more than…

I've seen the exact same thing as a small-mediumish (100-200 now) start-up I used to work for, there'd be an email sent around to encourage employees to leave a good review, seeing as you can't change your review after it's a scary way to waste your shot.

But I guess that shots wasted anyways if the system is rigged to begin with.

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#168

Post by mlrtime »

elwell wrote: post #121
sharadov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are becoming Yelp.

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...

Lous Rossmann goes over this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYzK8Nny_Yo

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#169

Post by westmeal »

gotoeleven wrote: post #155
at-fates-hands wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hear me out, what about an armband?

Re: A warning about Glassdoor

#170

Post by sushshshsh »

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.

Word of mouth also actually can't be trusted if it doesn't have full view of reality. I revealed some secrets to a friend about a company and it turns out it was just my department that had the problem
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