Programming

I generally assume their ratings are gamed, especially for smaller shops. I know I've been asked recently (in the last year) to review the company I'm currently working at on glassdoor by a superior. As you can imagine, I gave the place a good review.

A year later, they've laid me and all but 1 dev (the CEOs buddy) off and failed to do basic shit like send COBRA info and agreed upon severance payments, but their glassdoor doesn't reflect that, because glassdoor doesn't make it possible to edit reviews past 30 days. I suppose I could go delete the review at least

Purely anecdotal, but I worked for a small software company that were truly awful. I left a review on leaving that was honest, but factual. Weeks later, a competing review was left up that countered all of my points as positives - often hilariously so, shit like "we don't unit test because we aim to be right first time".

My review was then removed from Glassdoor. Knowing the rumours, I used an old eMail address that would be hard to link back to me. A little while after, the COO complained on LinkedIn about fake reviews on Glassdoor, pasting my email address that I had used to register.

I trust the negative reviews on that site, but not the positive ones. I also don't trust Glassdoor as a company to do what it says it'll do...

I have gotten a job through glassdoor. My first actually.

It's just a job posting site and most tech jobs go through an internal portal anyway.

90% of any "easyapply" services on any job finding platform will do nothing at all

As far as a company reviewer, it is a shitshow. I was looking for a job last year, tons of 2-4 star companies with fully mixed/negative feedback I was browsing again a few weeks ago and a lot of those companies have positions open. Almost every one of them were now "unreviewed" companies with 0 reviews. All of those reviews were purged.

There are no companies (that I have been coming across in my field) in my country now that have below 3.5 stars. A company that I KNOW had 2.5 stars when I was looking for a job 2 years ago. They are a contracting company with a lot of temporary employees, mediocre salary, no progression, etc... All of the sudden it is 4 stars now.

Not to mention that now in the app, clicking the "rating" tab no longer brings up company rating and reviews. It brings up the exact same information page as the company puts as their "about us" with founded, size, headquarters, etc...

Glassdoor is not a company review site anymore. It is a mediocre job posting board.

I like Blind for tech companies personally, you have to make an account, but if you work at a place you can have a verified account and the accounts I don't think can be taken down, reviews seem more candid there IMO

I always assume all the reviews are from plants or axe grinders. You can sort of detect elements of truth if you read between the lines, but salt is required.

I treat it like Yelp.

Most people who use Yelp are there to be Karen's and whine about things. But enough people are whining about the same thing, it's up to you to verify during the interview. And HR at the companies I worked at definitely look at Glassdoor reviews for feedback.

For example: I don't like working more than 40 hours and I especially don't want anybody to call me on the phone. It's a non-negotiable.

If I notice that in glass door reviews, I bring it up. Maybe that phone policy was for another dept. Or it was a shithead manager who got canned.

I feel like since Glassdoor has a job board, there is an obvious conflict of interest that cannot be solved and ultimately yields to the company review part to be mostly useless. If you browse through a few company profiles, some that offer jobs on Glassdoor (and reply to reviews) and some that do not, you will quickly see what I'm talking about.

I mean, who is going to post job offers on a board that also list your company at <4 stars with plenty of mention of "bad company culture" and "horrendous working condition"?

I also do not like how most of the would-be-intersting-info is gatekeep behind you sharing various info on your own employer. I mean, it seems to make sense on the surface, but with the above, the whole thing feels like a scam. Where both employers and employees get scammed.

How does it compare to alternatives ? Well, LinkedIn is terrible, with abysmal search function, results completely irrelevant to your profile, and the same seems to be true for recruiters seeing how often I'm proposed jobs completely outside of my skillset.

So I guess Glassdoor is a viable source of job offer, especially if you have already selected companies you'd like to work at and those companies do not have their own board. But take all reviews and comments with a huge grain of salt.

I've applied to jobs from Glassdoor before. I don't recall if I got jobs through it though. But basically every job I've worked I've found on some job board of some sort.