Glassdoor employer reviews

"Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever" (rustanddust)
08/24/2017 at 09:05 • Filed to: None

‘71 Challenger 318

I’ve been exploring my employment options recently, as the industry I’m in is in a weird place, and I’m not necessarily satisfied with my current situation.

I’m currently midstream in the interview process with a company (initial application, Wonderlic, initial phone screen, and 1st skills test completed, 2nd skills test upcoming today and presumably a round of Skype interviews as the last step). Benefits and pay are great, work from home, in an industry I have over 15 years of experience with.

The kicker is the reviews I’ve found on Glassdoor. There are a number of negative reviews of the company, but I’m not sure if they’re legitimate, or just the rantings of lazy, disgruntled former employees. I’ve never worked for a business large enough to have a Glassdoor listing, so this is the first time I’ve ever poked around their web site.

TL/DR: Not happy where I currently am employed, looking at another employer that so far sounds great, but has some questionable reviews. I’m not really a “job hopper”, and have usually been acquainted with businesses and their employees before working there, but not in this case. Help/suggestions?

DISCUSSION (15)

Roadster Man > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:11

Since you said that your industry is a weird place I’m assuming it’s a pretty niche job. Do you have an online network/newgroup/message board you can reach out to? Any old colleagues, etc? I’d do my best to find someone you actually know and try to get some info about your possible employer. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust any of those reviews.

Then again, my last job interview was over 6 years ago, and they sure as hell didn’t make me take a Wonderlic test. All they needed was someone a pulse and a Bachelor’s degree.

BIGBLOCK472 - wide and bizarre > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:12

I’ve noticed that reviews of my former employers were unfairly biased negatively and did not reflect what I perceived as the general atmosphere or morale of the institution. Of course everyone has a different experience, so...

itschrome > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:15

soooo yeah, glass door is cool. but also kind of useless. As you pointed our reviews seem to mostly stem from disgruntled former employees, as you’d expect. Happy employees have no reason to go out and rate their employers. Angry ex employees on the other hand...

Also if you find a work place with lots of positive current employees there may have been incentives for them to do so. I worked at a place that would send emails from time to time asking you to post positive remarks for them on glass door. they would throw free lunch from time to time if they recieved a fresh batch of positive reviews..

the best thing you can do is try and talk to people there and gauge there sense of the company. a great way to figure out how employees feel is by asking how long they have been there. If your find plenty of long timers it’s usually a safe bet. on the other hand is you find a lot of 1 year or less. heck even 2 year or less and the company is older than 5 years old. might be a better idea to keep looking.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:17

Glassdoor is not to be trusted. I had former employees leave legitimately racist reviews on our public glassdoor site. When I say racist I don’t mean to mince any words here; the wording used included things like “towelhead/dirt people/etc”. Anyone displeased with their lot in life will always find someone else to blame when they are not happy with their employment. Find someone at the company who is pleased with their station and talk to them.

Now_looking_for_a_cheap_car > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:19

Glassdoor reviews can tend to be a little challenging to trust given what motivation a person would have to write those. A good way to really know is asking questions that aren’t necessarily a Yes/No question.

Questions like: what do you like about your job. How would you describe your experience here so far etc tend to force answers to things you really would like to know.

Try to find someone who works there if at all possible via linkedin and ask them stuff you would like to know

Tripper > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:26

I’m also interviewing, and have been referencing glassdoor often. As with any reviews, I take the negative ones with a grain of salt as people are always much more motivated to leave a review when they’re unhappy. I focus more on the positive reviews, particularly the number of them. If there are a lot of them, probably a good sign. Also the content, if many people are saying the same things (positive or negative) it’s got a better likelihood of being true.

If I’ve made it to the in person interview portion of the process, I always try to find an employee who seems like they’ll open up about what they like/don’t like about working there.

Seat Safety Switch > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:49

The key to reading Glassdoor reviews is to see if there’s a specific complaint or event that a majority of the reviews bring up. Everything else is generally noise.

Sir Halffast > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 09:58

FWIW, I only use them to check salaries, to see if the position I’m considering is on par or better paid than my current job. I don’t really trust the reviews too much or, like you would on Amazon, just read the mid-rated ones because those always seem to be more honest.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 10:15

Sounds like a no brainer based on what you’ve seen in person - don’t let the reviews mess with your head. As long as you like the people you’ll be working for and with, and everything else it good, I’d go for it.

E92M3 > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 10:18

As others have said, it’s usually mostly negative reviews. Very few people will go out of their way to post a positive review, but they will go out of their way to vent. However, of the 2 companies I worked at that had Glassdoor reviews, there was a lot of truth in the reviews, and common complaints with each review, that pointed out the biggest issue(s).

Just an example from one of them. The reviews said it was a good place to get in the door with little experience, and many of them said it was a stable place to work, with many people working 10 years, or more, but the opportunities for growth were not there, it was mismanaged, and they had excuses not to give annual raises, even when the economy was booming. All turned out to be true, but I was able to be employeed there for 9 years, and leave when I was ready.

Aaron M - MasoFiST > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 10:38

I’m of two minds with Glassdoor. On one hand, the reviews are significantly skewed towards the negative...very few people think to leave a positive review of a company they’ve left, so that motivation bias is even worse than it is on, say, Yelp or Amazon.

On the other hand...I checked Glassdoor for reviews of my previous company back when I got my offer. In retrospect, while the reviews were more negative than warranted (the company got a middling score while I actually thought it was a pretty good place to work), the specific criticisms when given were valid, in thrust if not magnitude. So while you shouldn’t be turned off by an overall score, if multiple people are complaining about pay, advancement, culture, or some other singular thing, you should watch out for it, especially if you think it will be a dealbreaker.

The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) > Seat Safety Switch
08/24/2017 at 11:09

This. The Glassdoor reviews of the last company I worked for almost all mention the overbearing, erratic management style of the CEO and president of the company, along with their aversion to giving people raises, and the expectation of working long hours. When good and bad reviews mention the same specific issues, the issues are real.

So Shiney. So Chrome! So Frunky > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/24/2017 at 11:37

I find that Glassdoor is a mix of angry reviews and beaming reviews from interns (disregard the interns). I try to look for very specific complaints about policy and what not as a more concrete way of determining if i will fit there.

As far as talking to people who work there I’ve started asking people to tell me about a really good day they had at work during their career. I asked this to my co-workers once in a previous position that I hated and they couldn’t think of a single ‘good’ day in any of their 20+ year careers. Big red flag. I mean work is work but there should be a victory of some kind once in a while.

Chariotoflove > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
08/25/2017 at 18:39

In my line of work, you get to talk with the other workers on your interview and you can get a feel of the work environment (kinda). But, really it’s a crap shoot. What some people like, others don’t. One good thing is that working from home insulates you a bit from interpersonal problems.

One suggestion is, after you get an offer, ask your prospective employers the average tenure of their employees in that position, and where they go when they leave. I’m guessing HR knows the answer to the first question, and the managers may know the answer to the second if they were on good terms with those former employees.

In the end, you go with the data you have, and don’t let your fears about what you can’t substantiate stop you. Good luck!

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Rust and Dust - Oppositelock Forever
09/07/2017 at 18:17

I would be curious to read the reviews you mention here. I have a good nose for BS in posts, scams and so on. Is there a way you could share them?

Also, do you mind if I generate a thread with a few photos of my ‘71 van project and seek your guidance? The doors are catawampus and the window regulators are shot and all of the weather stripping is rotten and dry. I’d love to be able to communicate with you via email about it, if you were game. I’m oliphant.chuckerbutty@gmail.com

Thanks.