What do people think about Glassdoor?

[TazSyd]

We’ve never used it as we haven’t looked for a new job for 5 years. However DP is on furlough and concerned that he may not have a job to go back to. He’s been looking at job adverts and then company reviews on glass door.

Is it just a place for disgruntled employees go to vent? I know my company got a few bad reviews on there so asked staff who they thought were engaged to write reviews to counter them.

Just wondering if glass door does give an accurate idea of what it’s like to work somewhere.

I would pay more attention to the negative posts than the positive ones. If you see a consistent message, then take that seriously. I also know Glassdoor gives employers the option to pick their "top" reviews and have them published as the first reviews you see so you'll need to actively filter by "Lowest Rated" reviews to see the negative ones and not the default "Most Popular" filter (which in many instances doesn't show the most popular negative reviews).

All the places I've previously worked at actively encouraged employees, especially people who had joined recently to "positively contribute" to Glassdoor. Since Glassdoor doesn't allow anyone except the contributor to delete the review, employers hope they can bury a negative review with a flood of more recent positive ones.

@plainsailing01

Yes, that’s what happened at my co. We got a flurry of negative reviews from one team (there were issues in that particular team). My employer then asked people from other teams to write good reviews to to try and bury the bad reviews.

Most of the negative reviews on my current and previous employers' Glassdoor profile are fairly accurate. Yes, of course the opinions are subjective, but if you take the broader view across the multiple negative reviews, then their definitely is truth to a lot of what is being said.

*there

@thequantofmontecarlo Yes, typo - thank you!

@plainsailing01

Thank you. We’ll do a bit more research and look through our current and previous employers pages and see what they say.

I agree though, reading through all the reviews and seeing if there are common themes seems to be the way to go.

I had a job interview and researched the company on glass door, so many reviews said the same negative things, I couldn’t ignore it. I actually saw some of what the comments said in the interview. I’ve researched my previous companies, most were spot on.

@onlyfools

Yes, I think it’s definitely worth taking any themes that come up from glass door as part of a wider picture.

I work for a massive company and it doesn’t always reflect my personal experience. A lot of the experiences recorded are down to individual manager behaviours (which don’t always conform to the global policies).

So I think it works better for smaller companies. For a big company you really need a view of what it is like in the specific team or area you’re looking at.

@Chewbecca

Yes, true. I’ve had a look through today and if the poster identifies which part of the business they are in ie sales, Liverpool or finance, Birmingham then it gives you an idea. Some just say team member though, so you can’t see which part of the business it is.