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The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

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Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#91

Post by ryandrake »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #49
sahila wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.levels.fyi/ is a grest site for actual salary information on tech related jobs. The data reported very much matched my last round of interviews and the data granularity is good, being able to see levels, location, pay breakdowns, and even dates when the salary was posted.

Why are people downvoting this? Glassdoor numbers are BS and levels.fyi is extremely accurate.

Aren't all these sites limited by (and biased by) the selection of offer data they collect? Unless they are working directly with payroll companies to obtain a uniformly random sampling of offers, they're not going to be accurate. What incentivizes employees who get below-average offers and companies who give below-average offers to share that data with these salary sites?

Example: Everyone who even knows someone who makes $500K at Facebook seems to love posting about it here, but nobody who makes $100K there seems to feel the need to boast about it.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#92

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

IronWolve wrote: post #67
pushswap wrote: post #50

I left a review on the BBB, when I was a student, after being promised a gift card for a video interview of a product for one of the large tech companie's PMs. I refused a free trial or some other token offer by a call center employee that the company sent as part of the BBB resolution process. Not long after,the BBB removed my review even though I offered email evidence between the PM and I. I emailed one of their m…

The BBB is geared for companies, if you have an open issue, it becomes a back and forth ping pong match to see who can outlast each other. Companies HR will respond to the BBB update, they wear you out, and it gets closed as resolved. Its not. Its utterly useless. Same goes for some state agencies, file a complaint, but turns into a response back and forth, until someone finally gives up responding, and default close…

Once I requested an insurance reimbursement for a transportation expense of about $20.00, on the basis that their chosen service failed me that night.

The reimbursement was denied, so I appealed. COVID lockdowns were active, and the petty bureaucrat on charge of my appeal barely knew how to use her phone. She said the request was denied due to illegible documentation, which was bullshit.

They announced that the appeal was still undecided, but they wanted to grant themselves an extension of several weeks to study it more closely. I appealed the extension, and presently I was mailed a check for the full amount.

How much is your time worth? Is $20 worth an hour of wrangling bureaucracy?

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#93

Post by xnx »

shippintoboston wrote: post #3

I used to work at Desktop Metal which was (at the time) a pretty small startup here in Boston. When I left, I wrote a pretty negative review on Glassdoor about what I felt was a toxic work environment. At the time I submitted my review, there were probably about 10 reviews for the company. The very next day after my review was posted, about 7 positive reviews popped up. Obviously pretty suspicious behavior, but when…

Another case where web annotations would be useful.

Recently: iAnnotate – Whatever happened to the web as an annotation system? (2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36559758

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#94

Post by pubutil »

shippintoboston wrote: post #3

I used to work at Desktop Metal which was (at the time) a pretty small startup here in Boston. When I left, I wrote a pretty negative review on Glassdoor about what I felt was a toxic work environment. At the time I submitted my review, there were probably about 10 reviews for the company. The very next day after my review was posted, about 7 positive reviews popped up. Obviously pretty suspicious behavior, but when…

I definitely believe that. Years ago, I had an interview scheduled with a bank’s IT department. Checked their Glassdoor page and it was littered with negative reviews, with obviously fake positive reviews peppered in.

I took the interview anyway because I really needed work at the time. Got some 1-on-1 time with the IT guys and the first thing they said was,

“You read the reviews on Glassdoor, didn’t you?” “Yes..” “Well, don’t worry, IT is pretty isolated from all that”

Cool, I guess?

Next, I got some time with a VP. He saw on my resume that I’d done some work for a Christian church. He said,

“Yeah, I love to debate religion at the water cooler!”

Had he taken some time to get to know me, he’d know I’m not religious and probably would have held his tongue.

I got offered the job. Naturally, I didn’t take it.

Like others have said, Glassdoor is good to see problem spots in negative reviews. Positive reviews are meaningless in my eyes.

For reference, the bank was called Bank of Internet at the time. They’ve since rebranded to Axos and I continue to recommend against them. I know nothing about their financial credibility, but I can’t in good faith recommend anyone support a company that allows people in positions of power to “debate religion at the water cooler.” That’s a hostile work environment.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#96

Post by alecthomas »

Mtinie wrote: post #41
princevegeta89 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one trusts these review companies actually. They simply exist to extort entities that get reviewed either to remove negative reviews or promote or even auto-post fake positive reviews. Yelp is a classic example that did this for years.

Can you foresee a scenario where a review site could legitimately exist without turning to synthetic reviews, dark UI patterns, or outright brand extortion?

https://www.productreview.com.au/ is the only site I've ever seen that does a good job at user reviews. Each review has to be accompanied by a verifiable receipt.

Here's their operating model, which sounds like a mix of paid brand manager subscriptions and advertising: https://support.productreview.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/36000...

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#97

Post by collaborative »

I have operated a organigram app for the past 5 years. One of the bigger user segments is these so called ORM agencies. They use the app to keep track of their large "teams", assign tasks, etc. A team can be as large as 12,000 members

At first I didn't know what to think. Then I learned that their teams are mostly made up of illiterate people who need a few bucks to survive. I don't blame them. Online reviews are useless, if you need to know something ask someone you know, don't just take the opinion of someone on the griftnet

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#98

Post by spacemadness »

nickpeterson wrote: post #4

I remember working at a company that got frequently mentioned as “one of the best places to work in CITY”, and a few months into my tenure one of the HR employees circulated the website to go vote for our company on the “best places to work in CITY” website. I think Glassdoor is basically grievances by employees, some of whom are unreasonable, and fake counter-reviews by HR/marketing. I generally just look at the com…

Yes, I don’t understand how someone who is basically content with their employer decides they’re going to write a Glassdoor review. Why bother, you have better things to do. But if you’re pissed you might. Most reviews are glowing and decidedly fake or really negative.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#99

Post by lacrimacida »

wintogreen74 wrote: post #80
Mtinie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you foresee a scenario where a review site could legitimately exist without turning to synthetic reviews, dark UI patterns, or outright brand extortion?

Not a review site, but networks of people I trust directly is about the only thing that works. As soon as this grows beyond the trust I have in the network, the proxy trust tapers off quickly. That's the problem with something like glassdoor.

That’s why the most lucrative thing is to get people to ‘connect’ their networks digitally on social media and manipulate them. I hope we see a return to irl networks

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#100

Post by yamazakiwi »

ryandrake wrote: post #91
Der_Einzige wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people downvoting this? Glassdoor numbers are BS and levels.fyi is extremely accurate.

Aren't all these sites limited by (and biased by) the selection of offer data they collect? Unless they are working directly with payroll companies to obtain a uniformly random sampling of offers, they're not going to be accurate. What incentivizes employees who get below-average offers and companies who give below-average offers to share that data with these salary sites? Example: Everyone who even knows someone who…

That's a reasonable distinction but just look at the data itself.

There are tons of low level employees posting their salaries. If you work in those roles, that data could be more valuable to a candidate than Glassdoor's amorphous projections.

I think the user behavior that facilitates this is the same behavior you see represented on Blind.

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