The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#111

Post by jasonfarnon » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #102

pubutil wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..” “W…

> 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. This is likely some cultural issue (I'm not from the United States), but I don't get what some person of power who loves debating religion at the water cooler makes the company a hostile work environment. Quite the opposite: in my gut feeling…

Yes, this is the issue I have with all the comments on this thread saying that glassdoor has too many good reviews for a company that the commenter knows is "toxic". I have no idea what "toxic" means to the commenters here. Then I finally see an issue concretely identified: toxic can mean manager expresses an interest in "debating religion at the water cooler"? So what?

I also wouldn't generalize from this poster's anecdote to conclude "This is likely some cultural issue" in the US. I guess religion is a touchy subject in the US compared to more homoegenous nations like in the EU, and a rule of thumb I'd always heard is to avoid it in the office. (They used to say the same thing about politics in the office but that definitely went out the window these last 10 years.)

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#112

Post by glonq » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:30 PM UTC

I was too afraid to leave an accurate/bad review of my previous employer because the CEO was petty and litigious. I don't trust glassdoor to keep me anonymous. Plus I already knew that HR was producing good reviews to drown out the bad ones.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#113

Post by black_puppydog » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:33 PM UTC

princevegeta89 wrote: post #17

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…

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.

> No one trusts these review companies

It's not so much that I'd read the reviews, but ranking of results is fatally flawed thanks to these practices.

For many queries (restaurant in town X, book in genre Y) there are simply so many candidate results that ranking is the one and only thing to determine a (much, MUCH) smaller candidate set that the customer might actually engage with. How often do you click through to page 2 of your search results?

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#114

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:41 PM UTC

jasonfarnon wrote: post #111

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is likely some cultural issue (I'm not from the United States), but I don't get what some person of power who loves debating religion at the water cooler makes the company a hostile work environment. Quite the opposite: in my gut feeling…

Yes, this is the issue I have with all the comments on this thread saying that glassdoor has too many good reviews for a company that the commenter knows is "toxic". I have no idea what "toxic" means to the commenters here. Then I finally see an issue concretely identified: toxic can mean manager expresses an interest in "debating religion at the water cooler"? So what? I also wouldn't generalize from this poster's a…

Religion is a legally protected class in the US, and the fact that a boss would willingly want to discuss, much less debate it with a subordinate opening the business up to much unnecessary liability is a red flag at least for stupid leadership.

Worst case scenario, the boss is trying to discriminate based on religion, and trying to find out more about the subordinate’s personal beliefs. Best case scenario, boss is for whatever reason curious, but displays lack of knowledge of labor laws and best practices (in the context of asking to discuss with a newbie who they have no prior relationship with).

After a working relationship had been established, I could see religion as a as a casual topic being reasonable depending on how what their relationship is like, but as an introduction? Forget about it.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#115

Post by vore » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #77

iambateman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say Consumer Reports and NYT wire cutter are pretty objective… Their bigger issue is that company quality doesn’t change much from year to year, so the pans that were good in 2019 are probably still good now, which is boring.

Wirecutter is not objective. https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...

Previous discussion on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22141719

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#116

Post by lurknot » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

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…

My favorite thing about glassdoor is that I've had employers use their pay scales for negotiations. Which of course are many years old at this point. Needless to say I rejected their offer.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#117

Post by local_crmdgeon » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

kfarr wrote: post #47

princevegeta89 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if it was driven by a non-profit org I guess

Consumer Reports has entered the chat

Consumer Reports has well known biases though, which colors their reviews. For example, they tend to rank American car companies unfairly low. Their vehicle issue score isn't weighted - trouble linking phone to infotainment is the same as engine exploding. Cars with more tech -> lower scores, even if they're mechanically flawless.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#118

Post by ProllyInfamous » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 11:57 PM UTC

aorloff wrote: post #86

rightbyte wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, the account you wrote the positive review with was the shill account.

The grift is real

Once you've been grifted enough times you realize you were the grifter all along...

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#119

Post by Libcat99 » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 12:03 AM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #68

Libcat99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a site that included both reviews of companies and (paid) job postings from reviewed companies could survive. Of course misbehaving companies would probably stop spending there, but that might not be a bad thing.

Wouldn't that set up a conflict of interest for the review site? I'd trust such a site even less than normal (and normal is pretty close to not at all).

Sure, in kind of the same way that steam has a conflict of interest with reviews for games. But I tend to trust steam reviews at least generally, in fact more than I do most reviews on products I am looking at.

It is possible to exist in this space with a potential conflict, as long as you position yourself appropriately. If your interest is to serve "decent" companies by providing them with interested candidates, it can work.

It'll work fine until the site decides chasing profit is more important than integrity of the system, so probably right around the time they're looking for more funding.

Re: The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews

#120

Post by Libcat99 » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 12:04 AM UTC

princevegeta89 wrote: post #87

Libcat99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a site that included both reviews of companies and (paid) job postings from reviewed companies could survive. Of course misbehaving companies would probably stop spending there, but that might not be a bad thing.

At the same time, unfortunately we will have a hard time finding companies that will actually thrive on that website, since a staggering majority of them are just ridden with crooks in the management layer and above.

True, though this should increase the value of the listings that remain. Companies that can hold their own here gain the value of being respected in the community.