Ask HN: Are Glassdoor reviews a reliable indicator of a company's culture?
A particularly negative review of a London startup[0] by a former employee has been doing the rounds on social media recently. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a couple of extremely positive reviews by current employees have suddenly cropped up for that company as well. So positive they feel a bit like HR plants. But then again, the original feels like a gleeful hatchet-job and is maybe a bit extreme going the other way.
Is Glassdoor reliable, and if not, are there any reliable alternatives?
[0] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Employee-Review-ROLI-RVW17219691.htm
162 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadIf you want to know what a company is like... go look for yourself?
The first is when I was asked to do interviews for my replacement after I handed my notice in at one company. Everyone knew that I was leaving because I hated it, I didn't even have another job lined up. But I was the person on my team _least_ likely to give a bad impression of the company.
The second is when I was interviewing for a startup tech lead role. One of the engineers gave me a tech test, then we had a chat, and I asked, "What's the worst thing about the company?" She told me: "Basically the CEO has no idea how software development works, or agile development, and we have loads of arguments and it's really frustrating. We're trying to hire a tech lead to shield us from that." Needless to say, I didn't take the job...
The larger the company gets, the less useful glassdoor is. The same company could have very awful very political teams, and very awesome and great teams.
More useful.. go out to the bar with your future team. If you didn't enjoy it, then pass. If you enjoyed it, then think about working there.
I run a site called TransparentCareer (https://www.transparentcareer.com) and we've tried to make all of this data quantitative and verify that the person actually worked at the organization and what role they were in. We are getting ready to release a qualitative type review/question answering system using the same verification method and you will be able to see what department within the company the review is in reference to.
I would love to hear how people think this could be done better as we are currently developing the product and would love if it could solve this need in the best way possible. Is employee verification the biggest problem or is it something else?
Or even worse, from https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Lab49-Reviews-E257101.ht...
> * Requiring new joiners to write a Glass Door review as part of their on-boarding process, presumably in an attempt to improve their rating.
The recipe was to hire in a bunch of college grads, and while they're still nervous about their first corporate gig, have the VP of Human Resources email a demand that they post a glowing review.
And, when the rating inevitably continues to be hammered by negatives, instead of addressing the patterns within the negative reviews, HR would send that review demand to the overseas team(s) where the jobs were even more tenuously-held.
While HR made glaringly obvious positive reviews, themselves, of course. Pretty insidious.
If there is a low distribution of 1 star ratings, then either the 1 star people are outliers or there is some sort of incentive for the higher ratings (either pressure from management to give positive reviews, or the company could just pay for fake reviews). Sometimes this is obvious, like a bunch of positive reviews that sound the same posted in a short timeframe, and sometimes it isn't. At the end of the day it is going to be a gut feeling.
Before I was a contractor [ where reviews mean much less as you're not marrying your employer ], I'd take more of a Goldilocks approach to the reviews. The outliers (like a product review on Amazon) have to be smoothed out somewhat mentally.
However, glassdoor is not completely objective-- companies can get negative reviews removed simply by complaining about them, and the quality control on this is not good. So that means that over time the HR department can just keep making accounts and complaining about the negative reviews and they disappear.
Thus if you leave a negative review you have to be a watchdog... and if it gets removed, even without cause, glassdoor won't let you leave another one.
However they can't hold back the tide, here's a comment from a recent review (redacted for privacy): " Forced "culture". It's explicitly stated that culture fit is a huge part of this backwards company. If you are too tired to go to a happy hour when the XXXX crew comes to town prepare for awkward questions why and being told you're not supporting the culture if you don't attend - by the CTO."
Reading the reviews of this company (that I worked at and know first hand) I see a lot of negative recent reviews, but the overall score is 2.4... way too high to be accurate.
HR is still grooming the reviews and leaving fake positives, to keep that overall rating up, and the negatives are all relatively recent (though they describe problems that have existed for 5 years.)
I agree with this. I'm usually more suspect of the glowing, very positive reviews, particularly a bunch in a row within a certain time period. I've read at least once that I can remember where employers were essentially providing incentives for employees to go out and write positive things on Glassdoor, in an effort to clean up its image on that site.
I'd say look for themes. I'm interviewing with a company right now where the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, but I've turned the mental alarms off for now because it's totally backed up by all of my interaction with anyone associated with the place. Genuinely great culture in play. I only say this to balance out any message I might be giving to not trust any positive reviews.
You really are best off reading through and looking for themes, rather than relying on the aggregate ratings, or categorical statements of "good" and "bad" in any particular review. Culture is totally subjective, so look for a description of what that culture is, versus whether the reviewer thinks its good or bad.
I figure that adding a negative review is only going to add to the noise. So, I usually avoid doing so unless it is particularly egregious.
This means that I also weigh the good reviews heavier than I do the negative reviews. I do try to keep an eye out for fluff reviews and try to ignore those. No, this product didn't 'literally save your life' and things like that. Many of the negative reviews read like they didn't understand the product or service and are displeased that it didn't meet their goals, which would be expected because it didn't claim to meet those goals.
It does make me wonder if there's a way to ensure honest and objective reviews. I doubt there is, but we may be able to make the system better.
Glassdoor has the same pros and cons of any review aggregator. It is susceptible to gaming (perhaps uniquely so, like Yelp, because the companies being reviewed are also Glassdoor's advertisers). But it provides a directionally accurate view of a corporate environment given a large enough sample size of reviews--and as with any review, more credence should be given to examples that are clear, detailed and well-written.
The negative reviews are pretty much the only interesting data points on the site. Take them with a grain of salt, sure. But you have to take the positives (especially large cohorts of positives over short time intervals) with the whole freaking salt shaker. The aggregate scores offer some directional guidance, but bear in mind that you are not looking at the total sample size of reviews; you are looking at the sample size after the company has culled and gamed what it can, which is often quite a lot of the original pool.
This is sort of like the directional reliability of eBay scores, now that there is a short decay on past reviews, and pretty much anyone with 10 minutes on their hands can get negative reviews expunged.
Read longer reviews and judge for yourself. Don’t trust the star ratings.
What does this say about us? "It's ok to abuse people, just do it equally."
I would trust the ensemble and the overall tone of reviews
Most of the responses here are spot on but I want to address that one specific point. It's highly unlikely those new reviews are HR plants. Instead, the company is clearly aware of the negative review and the fact that it's getting publicity and has asked/encouraged their current staff to post their own reviews.
The only way to make it not look like a HR racket is to let the negative review slide for a few weeks/months. And at a later date decide if you'll leisurely encourage current employees to make reviews. Even better, encourage employees to make reviews prior to there being one bad review to set the tone of the debate.
I would take Glassdoor with a few grains of salt.
I guess I should go leave a positive review, but the motivation of an angry/hurt person is WAY higher than those of us who are happy.
(shrug)
1. It tends to attract complaints and unhappy (ex) employees more than anything else. The ratings tend to skew low as a result. Look for common themes, and take them with a grain of salt.
2. Complaints can be specific to a department or role. Complaints about Amazon, e.g., may be related to working in one of their distribution centers, not in HQ/IT.
3. Current employees don't tend to leave reviews. Unlike an annual employee survey—which would be a better indicator if companies chose to publish them—Glassdoor tends to ignore current employees.
I think overall it's good for a quick check on morale if there are >20 reviews. The salary data is worthless, high earners within companies do not advertise what they earn.
Also, I've seen evidence of one employee posting multiple bad reviews. It's a bad system all around.
"Wow I don't understand these five star reviews, I'm totally a real person who works here! Positives: <everything is amazing>; Negatives: <something inconsequential>"
Anyways, that's when you politely decline to interview.
This kind of thing is generally a yes/no type of thing.
"There's a parking lot"
Wow, this company is reaching for the stars there!
(Note: I don't know where the company is located, but generally having a parking lot isn't a bragging point.)
It's not uncommon for a company to have some sort of management shuffle, a new (worse) culture is imposed, and people start to leave and write negative reviews. Then the company will hire a firm to write them positive reviews and disparage those who have left bad reviews, and not realise that prospective employees can completely tell the difference between the level of detail in the negative reviews 'eg, there was a pm who used to try to physically intimidate the female members of the team by leaning over them when he talked, I saw this on a weekly basis for 6 months until he was promoted to the programme manager and stopped working in our office', and the BS positive ones like 'it's a challenging place to work, the people posting negative reviews are used to workplaces where they need less initiative blah blah blah.
You'll see what I mean as you read them.
Sites like glassdoor are the only safety net we have to protect ourselves from those kinds of situations.
Yes. In my experience: Only people extremely pissed off take the time to open their macbook and write a truthful rage at 2am. There are good reviews, but they just don't have the same soul crushing honest factor. Comically, people think they are being anonymous -- but you can't soul crush without knowing -- and people (engineers) quickly put things together.
Usually at the end of an interview, the interviewer ends up feeling like this person is a great guy, just unlucky. They might have failed a lot, but failure is good in Silicon Valley.
You end up with a person who becomes a core team member because they care the most. But they end up being manipulative assholes who are well connected.
Several years ago when I last posted a review on there o tried to explicitly call out my director for several things. They first wouldn't allow me to post his name and after I removed that I still had too much "identifying information" that I had to remove before it accepted my post.
And the motivation to dedicate resources to this is...? You already fired the person, what does it matter if you find out who they are?
Am I, perhaps, over-estimating my ability? Are they really that good at determining origin?
I'd often remember to look up a company on Glassdoor after an iffy interview. It sent me running away from a couple places I was on the fence about.
And it's just as llaith says. I'd usually have to wade through the sockpuppet froth at the top to find the detailed reviews from developers 3-6 months ago describing the dysfunctional culture or 60+ hour workweeks.
One company (Series D, 300+ employees) that I worked at did this, sort of. It was less a hired firm, and more the CEO posting.
> and the BS positive ones like 'it's a challenging place to work, the people posting negative reviews are used to workplaces where they need less initiative blah blah blah.
Absolutely. There are a few key phrases that are huge red flags for me. Consistent "themes" showing up on Glassdoor along the lines of "people who can't stand the heat need to get out of the kitchen" or "people are used to the old ways and need to grow up" or "this is a fast paced work environment and not everybody can handle it" are red flags that the company is trying to influence their Glassdoor rankings. It's like the opposite of sandbagging... if they make enough of the same comments, then Glassdoor will pick up a theme that provides an "excuse" for the company's legitimate bad reviews.
Nothing gets my goat more than this kind of thing. Suddenly, if I don't want to be harassed every day, I "can't hack it"?
Usually it's simple like "they moved on" or "they were promoted". One time I got an angry, "Well they just couldn't handle it here!" Huge red flag
Maybe Glassdoor reviews need the opportunity for a company representative to say, "this is valid criticism and we are addressing it."
I used to believe that the "please rate my app"-popup was bad ux. Now I know why it's used.
I'd think the same pattern applies to GD. Why would I write a review when satisfied with my work? I'd have no reason to even visit GD.
It doesn't make it any better ux though. FYI, the way to make them stop is to say 'yes i'll write a review', wait for the app store to load, and then close it. They usually won't prompt you again.
> I'd think the same pattern applies to GD. Why would I write a review when satisfied with my work? I'd have no reason to even visit GD.
If you're highly engaged with your company and have positive feelings, you may want it to look better to people considering working with you.
No, I didn't mean that it somehow turned into great ux. I meant that I understand the rationale behind it nowadays.
I ask, as the payment method is critical to understand it's reliability.
If it is ads, then yes, I think it should be reliable. 'You' are the 'product' in that case. More negative press will likely keep you clicking and searching about, therefore more money.
If it is the companies, then it it not likely reliable. Why would you pay a company to essentially bad-mouth you? You pay them for good press (the pizzeria in NY on Yelp being an egregious exception). I'd say this holds if the companies can pay in any way at all. If they can influence for dollar, even rarely, then the whole thing is suspect.
Anyone know the real answer?
However, I can't find anything official about either and Wikipedia isn't very helpful. They do have some information about their existing funding:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassdoor
A part of me thinks this type of thing would make a good not-for-profit enterprise. I'd even consider some sort of government backing. I'd say a service like that has good social potentials and can help society to make nformed choices.
So yes, Glassdoor's intensive structure is aligned to make employers happy. They don't take any income from individual review contributors or readers.
However, it seems that their business model is then catered, at this time, to employers and they have made themselves a niche area in the reputation management sector. Though not alarming at this time, I can see this going south quickly and without warning (Equihax for example)
So yeah, in many cases glassdoor is a strong signal. Don't just look at the average rating, read the reviews from the past few months and look for trends and red flags.
I also interviewed with a well-known company two weeks ago and they told me, during the interview, that they've had to have Glassdoor remove comments about their idiotic interview quizzes. I still look at Glassdoor, but I don't take it as seriously as I do reviews on Amazon or Yelp.
But it's important to remember that these are static data points in time, so there are certainly factors you should weigh based on other available data. For public companies, it can be important to assess changes in organization structure including and around the CEO. For private companies, sale of company is worth considering, though that top leader may still be in place post-sale.
Depending on the role you intend to enter, a negative tone may be what you're looking for -- lots of managers enter roles to help turn around a company. That the problems have been called out directly provides an important starting point in understanding whether you will actually be in a position to fix the problem. And public disclosure of the problems also provides a clear target for response through subsequent Marketing/PR and corporate improvements.