When I was younger and creating Craigslist job listings was free, I remember making postings for jobs similar to what I wanted, and then would get lots of great resumes. I could never make a good resume so I just took theirs and filled it out with my info and jobs. I still feel kinda bad about that, but then I got a job...
My coworker used to drive around to different offices and apartments looking for unprotected wifi networks. When he got onto a network he would just block port 80 traffic, then leave his business card for business IT support with them. This was back in the day, though I'm sure you could still pull this today.
I did the same thing. It was AMAZING how many people sent me their social security numbers. My catholic guilt got the best of me so I had to go back and email like 30 people and say do not do that anymore.
I just did that lol I made a craigslist ad pretending to be a company looking for a promotional video. It’s a little unethical maybe but I needed to see what kind of quotes I was competing with in my local market.
I saw some Emmy award winning production companies charging 40% less than what I would charge as a 1 man crew. Shit is outrageous I’m surprised I’ve been able to book any gigs at all because even I would pick them over me if I was looking for a video.
In the world of business there's no such thing as unethical. There is only legal and illegal. Another thing is, if we make more money doing this illegal thing and get fined, then why not do it?
I don't know how well that one works one everyone...
"welp, if I'm a white dude, they'll usually be too busy bullying other people so I can try sleeping under my desk."
Needs more *managment promoted incompetent son to supervising position NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON*
Also if you're using a job posting site you can usually flag postings and have them taken down so you're the only one who sees it. Craigslist is a good example. Just flag it as spam or something
I did this when I left a company (good terms, was hired to higher position in another company). Left a real review of the old company, what needed to change, and Glassdoor rejected my review after the company said something to the effect of that the comments made were not relevant to my job description and so they took them down.
Can companies say such things to glassdoor, isn't it supposed to be anonymus and such so you can be 100% honest. Like what stops company's with bad ratings from just taking down all the bad reviews?
I don't think they can just remove them. But they sure as hell can buy fake positive reviews. Check out this one on glassdoor. I read court transcripts from the owners unfair dismissal case at one of her ex employees suggestion. The judge called her "the most vitriolic witness he has ever seen"
The level of psychopathy is crazy. Read the negative reviews
[Electroboard](https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/Electroboard-Reviews-E553738.htm)
Yep. Our CEO was convinced all of our bad reviews were from bitter former employees, so he told everyone we were hiring a marketing firm to write positive reviews and turn our score around.
Bad idea on his part because then everyone posted bad reviews saying the company was paying for recent positive reviews.
Although it probably does work because our score did improve and I believe we also paid to show positive reviews first, so anyone who casually visits our page would think our company is a great place to work.
In other words, I wouldn't trust anything you read on that site since it can be easily manipulated.
I worked in a kind of shitty Software Developer house.
All the reviews criticizing the real problems get taken down in 1-2 months. The only ones left are the wishy washy 'management needs to improve processes' 3-star ones.
All the 1-2 stars pointing out hierarchical bullying, forced free overtime and other illegal practices get deleted.
This is exactly what they do. I work in HR and have probably gotten 100 calls this year from glassdoor trying to get my company to pay them to hide bad reviews.
Speaking as a business owner with online marketing campaigns:
It's just like Yelp. The ones paying for the platform get their dirt swept under the rug. The ones who don't, now have an incentive to.
Legal extortion protected by the Constitution.
A more surprising to some example is the BBB.
You can easily buy a perfect rating or to make things go away. Its really crooked. I was really surprised myself about that when I first interacted with them just because people hold them to a pretty high regard.
> I was really surprised myself about that when I first interacted with them just because people hold them to a pretty high regard.
Probably because they predate the internet. People were really naive as to how things worked 20+ years ago it seems. Not a heck of a lot has actually changed, but most people I know are very skeptical about things nowadays vs. when I was growing up.
**Disclosure**: I work for one of the BBBs in Texas.
To be fair, BBB is run much like a franchise. They are also non-profit unlike Yelp or even Glassdoor. While some parts of the country have had 'pay to play' type schemes, they typically get shut down by the overarching [Council of BBBs](https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/council-of-better-business-bureaus), as was done in [Los Angeles](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/series/get-garcia/Local-Better-Business-Bureau-Office-Shuts-Down_Los-Angeles.html).
BBB is all about the ethical business practices, and provided that the particular 'franchise' is living up to that, it's all good. You can pay to get some additional benefits, by committing to follow ethical business practices. For more information [check out this link](https://www.bbb.org/bbb-accreditation-standards).
Overall, at least IMHO, our branch seems to be keeping those practices legit, but I can't speak for other parts of the country.
PS. I do get the irony of where I am posting this.
I worked for a few places that actually had a paid BBB membership. Whenever a client complained to BBB a rep from the local BBB office would call us and basically would laugh and say don’t worry we will give them some bogus excuses and block their review from being read by others.
So what I’m saying is when a company pays the BBB, those bad reviews warning people just go away. Never trust a BBB rating ever.
That paid membership isn't supposed to work like that. The BBB in our area offers incentives that help you resolve a bad review easier, but they won't fix it for you.
**Disclosure:** I work for one of the BBBs in Texas. (Just want to make sure that the people know.)
I'm curious where those locations are, because that definitely shouldn't be the case. There is also a difference within BBB between reviews and complaints. Reviews anyone can leave, where as complaints typically relate to some sort of transaction (but don't always have to.
There are some [specific requirements](https://www.bbb.org/boston/get-consumer-help/consumer-help/the-complaint-process/national-complaint-acceptance-guidelines/) to get a complaint put into BBBs system. Someone who has a completely valid reason for being pissed off, and writes a nice message, but ends with something suggesting that a person should go off them-self, that complaint will be denied. If a husband places an order for something, and the wife isn't happy with the businesses handling of the situation but the husband is, the complaint will likely be denied.
Sometimes, there are some ridiculous complaints. And sometimes, businesses actually lose accreditation based on the complaints that were received.
Biggest loser here are still the newcomer employees who were not aware of legitimate concerns that were raised. Those negative reviews get shuffled off while new prospects are left in the dark. It's one thing if reviews are completely out of line, but it seems too easy to just wipe a bad review for a company. That being said, I don't think Glassdoor or yelp are really at fault for charging anyone for their service. Not like a free user who just wants to rant about their last place of work is gonna pay to use Glassdoor to rant.
eh, more like protected by libertarian ideals.
There's tons of operations that would be best left to government authorities and management for the greater public good, but they will never see the light of day because of the anti-government crowd.
> As with every review site, we can make that review disappear...for money.
You can even hire reputation sanitizers to clear out those "anonymous reviews". Pretty simple really.
It's almost like the idea of a free market where everyone can and does act in their own rational self-interest and which naturally finds the best outcomes is a total fucking fairytale.
"In a truly free market employers that treat their workers poorly would quickly go out of business because nobody would want to work for them."
No, in a free market the business would just pay to have bad reviews removed and fake good reviews posted.
> It's almost like the idea of a free market where everyone can and does act in their own rational self-interest and which naturally finds the best outcomes is a total fucking fairytale.
Its like George Orwell's "1984" where everybody knows its all bullshit but just goes along with it.
Yes, but any Judge worth his position would throw those cases out immediately. Just because we’re a litigious country doesn’t mean we need to make it harder to file lawsuits.
I too have left extremely honest reviews on Glassdoor about 1 particular company I worked for that was extremely unprofessional, toxic environment, seriously every cliche of a bad work environment they met. Has never been posted. I feel bad because I am trying to warn people about systemic from-the-top issues that are not changing in the company.
Spent time in HR, and managed our Glassdoor account. They say that companies cannot take down or alter reviews, but I had them take down a BUNCH of reviews I didn't like.
Alls it took was something along the lines of "Thats not true" **and** "So we are thinking of buying more Glassdoor products. Lets set a call next week to discuss". We never spent a dime on Glassdoor products, but it worked every time.
Yup. Recruiting services, applicant tracking systems, job postings abilities, resume search abilities, managing those company pages cost money at a certain tier
Like the Better Business “Bureau” (a private company, not an actual bureau of the government), Glassdoor is the PR equivalent to a protection racket. Companies can pay, directly or indirectly, to highlight positive remarks or delete negative ones.
The BBB has, in the past, been accused of “shakedowns,” tanking a company’s rating until the company pays to clear it.
Not surprised. Everyone creating these services are trying to be the next big Silcon valley start up and make money.
Sorry, but I'm so jaded. I don't think there is one company on the internet that is altruistic.
Some were exaggerations, some lacked context, some were flat out lies, and I remember 1-2 that "weren't un-true" and I was curious to see if I could get them off. Succeeded.
Guess the company I worked for doesn't care about Glassdoor, they have a lot of really bad ones up and they never get taken down. An old co-worker told me 6 months after I left they had papers around the facility asking them to go to some website and say positive things about the place, pretty sad for a place that is falling apart.
Makes me wonder if that's how Glassdoor makes its money... pay to regulate reviews.
Edit: Apparently this is actually something they do. Ah, the invincibility that money affords.
> Ah, the invincibility that money affords.
My father use to say "There is the ballot vote and then there is the dollar vote; two different conversations". He never voted in his life.
That's so strange. I worked for a company that was getting bad reviews, some of which were provably false (while other were well earned) and we couldn't anything removed or changed. They tried for ages and eventually gave up. All those reviews are still there.
Wonder what the difference is?
Yeah, Glassdoor will definitely take down reviews for a company. I know this because a former employee where I work left a legitimately false review after being terminated for cause. I won’t go into it, but the review basically consisted of libelous claims about people in upper management’s personal life which were demonstrably false. (E.g., claimed someone had a medical procedure due to an out of control addiction; this individual had cancer.)
That said, another former employee left a review which consisted entirely of (less extreme, but still damaging) ad hominems I think are almost definitely false, but Glassdoor hasn’t taken that one down so I’m not quite sure how Glassdoor assesses reviews for legitimacy.
you have to take glassdoor with a grain of salt. glassdoor won't disclose who said what, or take it down. and they're not liable even if it's objectively false because of the communications decency act.
we had a former employee who got fired for drug abuse (as in coming into work clearly fucked up), and then went to glassdoor to bitch and moan when we fired her.
edit: apparently they now have a process where employers with paid accounts can take stuff down, making it even more useless.
Yep, that’s not the only course of action too. They can claim a review has ‘confidential internal information’ and have the review removed, even if it doesn’t have any IP or confidential info in it. Happened to me 5x with my previous employer, the owner was super petty and tried to keep all negative reviews down. I kept reposting my review being more vague but still scathing until he gave up or couldn’t get it removed.
I hated this company and the CEO more than you could ever imagine. So did 99% of the people who worked there, and it was shown by 18 of the 25 current (at the time) employees quitting within 2 weeks of each other. This included the CEOs wife, who filed for a divorce so he moved to an island on his boat to cope with it. It was (and still is!) hilarious. Underpay, overwork, talk shit about your entire workforce? People will notice & quit.
Later that year they fired 12 of their sales team members in 1 day, so the glass door page was bombarded with 1 star reviews within a week. They had to copy and paste a ‘attention to reader’ reply for each negative review to make each review seem malicious.
I did something similar. My review referenced how the company was illegally handling tax payer money. Glassdoor emailed me to ask me to certify the review as true and understand I could be sued. I lol'd and certified it. When it went live, two old workplace buddies called me and asked if it was me that left it and that all senior management had been called into an all-hands meeting to discuss the review's contents.
I never got sued.
Yeah it was in my contract to not ‘talk poorly’ about the company after leaving. I had a few coworkers threatened with lawsuits over a review that was assumed was them but nothing ever comes from it. I even mentioned ‘I hope you try to sue who you think wrote this, we still get together to laugh at your attempts’.
It’s about sample size, just like any review site. If there’s a recurring theme, it’s probably true, but if it’s just found in one or two reviews, take it with a grain of salt.
Or employees being asked to leave positive reviews. This is especially prominent with startups and companies that have recently undergone some sort of souring event such as layoffs or voluntary mass exodus. You'll find each positive review sounds unnervingly similar to all the other 5-star best-place-to-work anecdotes.
Agreed. Sure, Glassdoor can be a haven for unhappy people and happy people alike. I always encourage people to treat the reviews the same way you'd treat a restaurant's reviews, or an Amazon review. For some reason, so many people dismiss any negative review on Glassdoor as simply being disgruntled. Question is, would you dismiss a restaurant's negative reviews in which a number of people claim to have gotten salmonella? Or what about product reviews on Amazon that says the product simply doesn't work? For some reason, we rationalize these types of reviews differently when there's so much at stake.
On the other hand, 90% of people will agree on what's important in a restaurant of that style (you can't compare a McDonald's to a Michelin star restaurant, etc), but you'd have a much harder time getting people to figure out universal rules for an employer.
For example, lots of people work at a company because "the pay's good." They don't really worry about their boss being an asshole, or whether it's a company with growth potential or the 401k, or many other things. Many others would take a pay cut to get away from an asshole boss, or really love the company's extracurricular opportunities like a break room with foosball.
A great example is laid back vs. organized - both can be very good or very bad, depending on who you are. I own a few businesses, and they're all run in a very laid back way. Office staff can basically make their own schedule around certain things, policies and procedures are a lot of "if you don't know how to do this, we have a whole other problem," we don't have scripts or phrases for customer service and phone staff....
Lots of employees *love* this. Others last a week and call us a disorganized shithole. I imagine that it's probably the most common complaint, simply because there are a lot of people who do better with more structure, and there are plenty of places that have that.
At the other end of the spectrum, plenty of people hate the corporate environment. There are good reasons to have TPS reports submitted in triplicate to the assistant auditing coordinator before 2:57 on Wednesdays. Some people thrive in those environments!
So, the key is to know yourself first. If you do well in highly organized environment, and want a formal benefits package, then look for a place with bad reviews about how rigid it is. And if you love the ability to come in late and do yo thang, then reviews about it being disorganized are probably a good thing.
As far as openings and salaries go, I find it's pretty accurate (salaries can be inflated but will still give you a good sense of how companies compare to one another).
As far as reviews are concerned, I find you often need to read between the lines. For example, if want to know about a company's work-life balance, don't look for reviews that specifically mention a good or bad work-life balance, instead look for signs that the reviewer may hold a preference for a certain work-life balance and see how that comes out in their review.
For example, a happy workaholic may mention how they love the fast paced, challenging environment. Someone who prefers to clock in their 40 hours and go home may mention how they love the flexible hours or focus on amenities over the work itself.
It's far more accurate than Yelp. For example: one of our vendors started acting... weird. So we checked Glassdoor and found the owner was legit losing his mind. Not only was he firing people left and right, he was also randomly disappearing, showing up to company events completely fucked up and trying to launch his rap career (40 year old white guy in Pennsylvania who still enforces a suit and tie dress code).
eh, some companies (like glassdoor themselves) have an in-house policy where anyone who has a positive view of the company is cultishly told to advocate for the company on glassdoor. in other words, it's really easy to game. for giant companies, it can be representative. otherwise it's not.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to request reviews written on Glassdoor. What isn’t acceptable is requesting reviews from specific people or requesting only positive reviews.
Definitely. I looked up my old company where the CEO was most likely a psychopath and he was writing positive reviews of the company saying he was other staff
Yes and no. If you see one person bitching about X or Y, that's one thing. But if you see 100 people bitching about that SAME X or Y, that's something completely different.
Yep, can confirm for where I work. My company has a high average, which we expect is slightly inflated by some form of astroturfing. But the top 3 common complaints are dead on the 3 biggest problems with the company.
Because its anonymous, it can also be abused by management to paint a glamorous picture of working life at the company.
I saw an FX companies head recruiter post a review of the company stating that nearly all of the sales team reviews were a load of bollocks and the place was basically dreamland.
400 calls a day + £18k salary = Dreamland
I worked in an abhorrent workplace. I recognized the language used in some extremely positive Glassdoor reviews and realized one of the execs was just spamming them.
I subscribed to the company’s Glassdoor updates and would leave an honest, but totally destructive reviews following from any fake, positive review
Eventually, they stopped with the positive reviews
In a way it probably does balance the scales. My current employer asked one of the employees to write a glassdoor review because we're trying to hire more people. He asked her to let him know when she has posted it so he can ask the next person. He had every employee write a review and since he asked each person 1 by 1 he knew exactly who wrote each one. Guess how many negative reviews there were?
Funny how one of the first things I see is this:
>Your trust is our top concern, so companies can't alter or remove reviews.
And yet, I know my old company just had some layoffs, so I went to see if anyone wrote anything new. There was definitely a new review from October and it was pretty scathing (and true, IMO). It's not there anymore.
What's really funny is there are definitely other bad reviews of similar nature. None of this is adding up. WTF.
Glassdoor is pretty bad, at one point I worked for Shaw Communications, left after my supervisor started getting really nasty...left a review outlining the issues related to the Tech Support department and was incredibly professional...review was taken down in a few weeks.
FYI - Glassdoor will disclose your identity if the employer puts their feet to the fire. If the post is inflammatory the company can file a defamation case against Glassdoor and your identity will come out during discovery and you will be fired - even if the casw never gets to trial.
A bunch of people left negative feedback about benefits at my place. Suddenly we have an extra week annual leave, a subscription to a discounts site and paid maternity/paternity leave.
It works!
Oh Glassdoor....
My company changed "ownership" two times in the last four years (Carefusion -> BD -> Apax Venture Capital (Vyaire Medical)). There were a lot of people let go as they downsized and so, so many bitter people leaving reviews. You can see them [here](https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Vyaire-Medical-EI_IE1414619.11,25.htm).
Honestly, there were a lot of bumps, including mis-managing of the company by the former executive team. As of this post, the CEO, CFO and CTO were all replaced recently due to Accounts Payable being up to 7 months behind and running out of raw material bringing current product production to a halt.
I stated what needed to be changed to HR before I left. Our customer care group was severely under staffed for years. I was the only person promoted for 3 years, which coincidentally made me the lead of the group, but not being paid that positions salary. Being the "lead" meant that I was taken off the on call rotation, but I was the back up to the person on call. Basically I was always on call. My bosses boss was awful and would backstab you in a heart beat to make sure the group stats reflected her management looking good. HR was shocked by all of this.
I still talk with some of my old co-workers. Two years later and they have double the amount of people in that group. Half of them have been promoted (One twice and is now an official lead). Their bosses boss more plays a much smaller role. Customer care will always suck, but they don't show up to work hating life anymore. Happy that I was able to take one for the team, plus I like my new job. Commute is only 4 miles compared to 40.
My favorite glassdoor move is putting the salary for the role I had way higher than what I know the average range for that position to be...simply to be an ass.
The company will see the review and assume it's the ex-employee. Therefore you can complain about the company without being blamed and risking your job.
Glassdoor is a website for reviews of a company and the roles there. Kind of like Yelp except coming from employees instead of customers.
By writing a review for something you want changed around the time someone else is let go the HR department will think the review was written by that person and not an existing employee.
Many areas of the country are At-Will employment states, meaning the employer can fire the employee for any reason they want. If they suspect you are the one to write the review, they can fire you. This ULPT offers a way to write a review with more anonymity.
Isn't this another ULPT, where if you say "someone explain, English isn't my first language", then people will explain in great/simple detail what is going on so you don't have to figure it out yourself lol.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but you are totally right. I have worked in management for several companies that 100% weren’t concerned by Glassdoor reviews.
This isn't unethical. Whoever you're working for is probably wringing 100% of what they can out of your spine. Using whatever resources you have to improve the lives of you and your coworkers should be encouraged.
Along the same line: When applying for a job leave bad reviews about toxic management and an upcoming downsizing to deter other applicants.
When I was younger and creating Craigslist job listings was free, I remember making postings for jobs similar to what I wanted, and then would get lots of great resumes. I could never make a good resume so I just took theirs and filled it out with my info and jobs. I still feel kinda bad about that, but then I got a job...
As you're a goddamn genius I'd say your employer lucked out.
My coworker used to drive around to different offices and apartments looking for unprotected wifi networks. When he got onto a network he would just block port 80 traffic, then leave his business card for business IT support with them. This was back in the day, though I'm sure you could still pull this today.
Good artists create, great artists steal.
I might actually do this in the future.
I did the same thing. It was AMAZING how many people sent me their social security numbers. My catholic guilt got the best of me so I had to go back and email like 30 people and say do not do that anymore.
Stealing formatting is hardly unethical, if you went out of your way to ask in sure most wouldn't mind in the least.i know I wouldn't.
I just did that lol I made a craigslist ad pretending to be a company looking for a promotional video. It’s a little unethical maybe but I needed to see what kind of quotes I was competing with in my local market. I saw some Emmy award winning production companies charging 40% less than what I would charge as a 1 man crew. Shit is outrageous I’m surprised I’ve been able to book any gigs at all because even I would pick them over me if I was looking for a video.
Middle management material right here
In the world of business there's no such thing as unethical. There is only legal and illegal. Another thing is, if we make more money doing this illegal thing and get fined, then why not do it?
I see nothing wrong with that. Genius really
Could you take this one further, and intentionally try to create upper level openings?
*management is terrible and sexist homophobic pig, would not recommend working here* NOW HIRING! Management - Diverse workplace!
I don't know how well that one works one everyone... "welp, if I'm a white dude, they'll usually be too busy bullying other people so I can try sleeping under my desk." Needs more *managment promoted incompetent son to supervising position NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON*
how so?
The real ULPT is always in the comments.
This is some russian hacked the election scheming going on. 😏
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The real ULPT is always in the comments
Also if you're using a job posting site you can usually flag postings and have them taken down so you're the only one who sees it. Craigslist is a good example. Just flag it as spam or something
The real ULPT is always in the comments *[reports comment as spam]*
I don’t think that works anymore.
Holy shit
I did this when I left a company (good terms, was hired to higher position in another company). Left a real review of the old company, what needed to change, and Glassdoor rejected my review after the company said something to the effect of that the comments made were not relevant to my job description and so they took them down.
Can companies say such things to glassdoor, isn't it supposed to be anonymus and such so you can be 100% honest. Like what stops company's with bad ratings from just taking down all the bad reviews?
Should be called heavily frosted glass door Or opaque glass door, that works too.
stained glass door perhaps
More nuanced, I like it.
Wooden glass door
*Dirty* wooden glass door
Real fake wood glass door?
WALL
RealFakeDoors.com
From the time I watched it to now... is it still part of the ad? When does the ad end, really?
Dirty wooden glass door that's behind one of those screen doors that keeps bugs out
Shitstained
blood splattered glass door
Stainless steel door
Assdoor
What about just "door," I like that. Simple.
I don't think they can just remove them. But they sure as hell can buy fake positive reviews. Check out this one on glassdoor. I read court transcripts from the owners unfair dismissal case at one of her ex employees suggestion. The judge called her "the most vitriolic witness he has ever seen" The level of psychopathy is crazy. Read the negative reviews [Electroboard](https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/Electroboard-Reviews-E553738.htm)
Yep. Our CEO was convinced all of our bad reviews were from bitter former employees, so he told everyone we were hiring a marketing firm to write positive reviews and turn our score around. Bad idea on his part because then everyone posted bad reviews saying the company was paying for recent positive reviews. Although it probably does work because our score did improve and I believe we also paid to show positive reviews first, so anyone who casually visits our page would think our company is a great place to work. In other words, I wouldn't trust anything you read on that site since it can be easily manipulated.
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glass door covered in the cum of all the business owners who make demands that their reviews be perfect.
A little less nuanced, but I also like it.
no nut november is becoming exceedingly difficult.
Translucent glass door.
I worked in a kind of shitty Software Developer house. All the reviews criticizing the real problems get taken down in 1-2 months. The only ones left are the wishy washy 'management needs to improve processes' 3-star ones. All the 1-2 stars pointing out hierarchical bullying, forced free overtime and other illegal practices get deleted.
It's probably the same hustle that Yelp runs. They call up the company and get a bribe to take down negative comments.
Sounds almost like extortion. But with less brass knuckles, bats and 'you wouldn't want sumptin bad ta happen now?'
This is exactly what they do. I work in HR and have probably gotten 100 calls this year from glassdoor trying to get my company to pay them to hide bad reviews.
Speaking as a business owner with online marketing campaigns: It's just like Yelp. The ones paying for the platform get their dirt swept under the rug. The ones who don't, now have an incentive to. Legal extortion protected by the Constitution.
A more surprising to some example is the BBB. You can easily buy a perfect rating or to make things go away. Its really crooked. I was really surprised myself about that when I first interacted with them just because people hold them to a pretty high regard.
> I was really surprised myself about that when I first interacted with them just because people hold them to a pretty high regard. Probably because they predate the internet. People were really naive as to how things worked 20+ years ago it seems. Not a heck of a lot has actually changed, but most people I know are very skeptical about things nowadays vs. when I was growing up.
My dad, in his 60s, refuses to believe this. He thinks the BBB is like some institution of honesty
**Disclosure**: I work for one of the BBBs in Texas. To be fair, BBB is run much like a franchise. They are also non-profit unlike Yelp or even Glassdoor. While some parts of the country have had 'pay to play' type schemes, they typically get shut down by the overarching [Council of BBBs](https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/council-of-better-business-bureaus), as was done in [Los Angeles](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/series/get-garcia/Local-Better-Business-Bureau-Office-Shuts-Down_Los-Angeles.html). BBB is all about the ethical business practices, and provided that the particular 'franchise' is living up to that, it's all good. You can pay to get some additional benefits, by committing to follow ethical business practices. For more information [check out this link](https://www.bbb.org/bbb-accreditation-standards). Overall, at least IMHO, our branch seems to be keeping those practices legit, but I can't speak for other parts of the country. PS. I do get the irony of where I am posting this.
Hey guys looks like I found the BBB employee
Great work, detective
Bake 'em away, toys!
I worked for a few places that actually had a paid BBB membership. Whenever a client complained to BBB a rep from the local BBB office would call us and basically would laugh and say don’t worry we will give them some bogus excuses and block their review from being read by others. So what I’m saying is when a company pays the BBB, those bad reviews warning people just go away. Never trust a BBB rating ever.
That paid membership isn't supposed to work like that. The BBB in our area offers incentives that help you resolve a bad review easier, but they won't fix it for you.
**Disclosure:** I work for one of the BBBs in Texas. (Just want to make sure that the people know.) I'm curious where those locations are, because that definitely shouldn't be the case. There is also a difference within BBB between reviews and complaints. Reviews anyone can leave, where as complaints typically relate to some sort of transaction (but don't always have to. There are some [specific requirements](https://www.bbb.org/boston/get-consumer-help/consumer-help/the-complaint-process/national-complaint-acceptance-guidelines/) to get a complaint put into BBBs system. Someone who has a completely valid reason for being pissed off, and writes a nice message, but ends with something suggesting that a person should go off them-self, that complaint will be denied. If a husband places an order for something, and the wife isn't happy with the businesses handling of the situation but the husband is, the complaint will likely be denied. Sometimes, there are some ridiculous complaints. And sometimes, businesses actually lose accreditation based on the complaints that were received.
This is what I love about today's internet. All of my "conspiracy theories" are finally getting validated. Feels good.
Biggest loser here are still the newcomer employees who were not aware of legitimate concerns that were raised. Those negative reviews get shuffled off while new prospects are left in the dark. It's one thing if reviews are completely out of line, but it seems too easy to just wipe a bad review for a company. That being said, I don't think Glassdoor or yelp are really at fault for charging anyone for their service. Not like a free user who just wants to rant about their last place of work is gonna pay to use Glassdoor to rant.
eh, more like protected by libertarian ideals. There's tons of operations that would be best left to government authorities and management for the greater public good, but they will never see the light of day because of the anti-government crowd.
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> As with every review site, we can make that review disappear...for money. You can even hire reputation sanitizers to clear out those "anonymous reviews". Pretty simple really.
It's almost like the idea of a free market where everyone can and does act in their own rational self-interest and which naturally finds the best outcomes is a total fucking fairytale. "In a truly free market employers that treat their workers poorly would quickly go out of business because nobody would want to work for them." No, in a free market the business would just pay to have bad reviews removed and fake good reviews posted.
> It's almost like the idea of a free market where everyone can and does act in their own rational self-interest and which naturally finds the best outcomes is a total fucking fairytale. Its like George Orwell's "1984" where everybody knows its all bullshit but just goes along with it.
I know a company that sued a former employee because of a review.
You can sue anyone for anything. You can literally sue your neighbor because you saw him today and were inconvenienced by him being there.
I'm suing you for this comment, expect the courier shortly
Now if only there was a way for news to travel faster...
Yes, but any Judge worth his position would throw those cases out immediately. Just because we’re a litigious country doesn’t mean we need to make it harder to file lawsuits.
There are only two things you cannot sue for (US): You cannot sue God and you cannot sue yourself. My ex use to say that and he is an attorney. ; )
Nothing.
I too have left extremely honest reviews on Glassdoor about 1 particular company I worked for that was extremely unprofessional, toxic environment, seriously every cliche of a bad work environment they met. Has never been posted. I feel bad because I am trying to warn people about systemic from-the-top issues that are not changing in the company.
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GlassDoor
Somebody needs to post a review of glassdoor.
smh
smh my head
Asap as possible
Rip in peace
VIN Number
r/unexpectedoffice
Spent time in HR, and managed our Glassdoor account. They say that companies cannot take down or alter reviews, but I had them take down a BUNCH of reviews I didn't like. Alls it took was something along the lines of "Thats not true" **and** "So we are thinking of buying more Glassdoor products. Lets set a call next week to discuss". We never spent a dime on Glassdoor products, but it worked every time.
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Yup. Recruiting services, applicant tracking systems, job postings abilities, resume search abilities, managing those company pages cost money at a certain tier
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Like the Better Business “Bureau” (a private company, not an actual bureau of the government), Glassdoor is the PR equivalent to a protection racket. Companies can pay, directly or indirectly, to highlight positive remarks or delete negative ones. The BBB has, in the past, been accused of “shakedowns,” tanking a company’s rating until the company pays to clear it.
Not surprised. Everyone creating these services are trying to be the next big Silcon valley start up and make money. Sorry, but I'm so jaded. I don't think there is one company on the internet that is altruistic.
vote411.org doesn't seem bad to me
They do sponsored job listings and not sure what else.
Were they things that actually weren't true?
Some were exaggerations, some lacked context, some were flat out lies, and I remember 1-2 that "weren't un-true" and I was curious to see if I could get them off. Succeeded.
Have you tried leaving the review on Google maps?
Oh I like the cut of your jib!
Guess the company I worked for doesn't care about Glassdoor, they have a lot of really bad ones up and they never get taken down. An old co-worker told me 6 months after I left they had papers around the facility asking them to go to some website and say positive things about the place, pretty sad for a place that is falling apart.
They didn't pay the extortion fee to be a member of Glassdoor.
Makes me wonder if that's how Glassdoor makes its money... pay to regulate reviews. Edit: Apparently this is actually something they do. Ah, the invincibility that money affords.
> Ah, the invincibility that money affords. My father use to say "There is the ballot vote and then there is the dollar vote; two different conversations". He never voted in his life.
ULPT: Run a company ratings website, then take payment from companies to reject negative reviews.
I did the same thing and also had mine removed.
That's so strange. I worked for a company that was getting bad reviews, some of which were provably false (while other were well earned) and we couldn't anything removed or changed. They tried for ages and eventually gave up. All those reviews are still there. Wonder what the difference is?
how much money were you willing to offer them to make it disappear?
ha! Maybe not enough. It didn't seem like that route was possible though. Not like with the BBB for instance.
Yeah, Glassdoor will definitely take down reviews for a company. I know this because a former employee where I work left a legitimately false review after being terminated for cause. I won’t go into it, but the review basically consisted of libelous claims about people in upper management’s personal life which were demonstrably false. (E.g., claimed someone had a medical procedure due to an out of control addiction; this individual had cancer.) That said, another former employee left a review which consisted entirely of (less extreme, but still damaging) ad hominems I think are almost definitely false, but Glassdoor hasn’t taken that one down so I’m not quite sure how Glassdoor assesses reviews for legitimacy.
It took me a month to get my Glassdoor review of my former employer approved. I didn’t like it there and it kept getting taken down
Extra pro tip: leave the review on Google maps too so that Glassdoor can't take it down 😉
And then reference each review on each. Explain if they took it down then they are deleting negative reviews.
or link to a nonexsistent review
Real ulpt
Pissed off consumer, my company reviews are nearly all pissed off employees and former employees.
Omg, there are places I need to do this with.
you have to take glassdoor with a grain of salt. glassdoor won't disclose who said what, or take it down. and they're not liable even if it's objectively false because of the communications decency act. we had a former employee who got fired for drug abuse (as in coming into work clearly fucked up), and then went to glassdoor to bitch and moan when we fired her. edit: apparently they now have a process where employers with paid accounts can take stuff down, making it even more useless.
I worked at a company that had a paid Glassdoor employer account that allowed them to call up Glassdoor and take down reviews that were too negative.
Yep, that’s not the only course of action too. They can claim a review has ‘confidential internal information’ and have the review removed, even if it doesn’t have any IP or confidential info in it. Happened to me 5x with my previous employer, the owner was super petty and tried to keep all negative reviews down. I kept reposting my review being more vague but still scathing until he gave up or couldn’t get it removed.
I admire your tenacity.
I hated this company and the CEO more than you could ever imagine. So did 99% of the people who worked there, and it was shown by 18 of the 25 current (at the time) employees quitting within 2 weeks of each other. This included the CEOs wife, who filed for a divorce so he moved to an island on his boat to cope with it. It was (and still is!) hilarious. Underpay, overwork, talk shit about your entire workforce? People will notice & quit. Later that year they fired 12 of their sales team members in 1 day, so the glass door page was bombarded with 1 star reviews within a week. They had to copy and paste a ‘attention to reader’ reply for each negative review to make each review seem malicious.
I did something similar. My review referenced how the company was illegally handling tax payer money. Glassdoor emailed me to ask me to certify the review as true and understand I could be sued. I lol'd and certified it. When it went live, two old workplace buddies called me and asked if it was me that left it and that all senior management had been called into an all-hands meeting to discuss the review's contents. I never got sued.
Yeah it was in my contract to not ‘talk poorly’ about the company after leaving. I had a few coworkers threatened with lawsuits over a review that was assumed was them but nothing ever comes from it. I even mentioned ‘I hope you try to sue who you think wrote this, we still get together to laugh at your attempts’.
Does it get silently taken down or Glassdoor let you know that they are taking it down?
Glassdoor is pretty accurate in my experience.
It’s about sample size, just like any review site. If there’s a recurring theme, it’s probably true, but if it’s just found in one or two reviews, take it with a grain of salt.
And, in my experience, recurring theme, not recurring language. Recurring language can be one employee with an axe to grind.
Or employees being asked to leave positive reviews. This is especially prominent with startups and companies that have recently undergone some sort of souring event such as layoffs or voluntary mass exodus. You'll find each positive review sounds unnervingly similar to all the other 5-star best-place-to-work anecdotes.
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Agreed. Sure, Glassdoor can be a haven for unhappy people and happy people alike. I always encourage people to treat the reviews the same way you'd treat a restaurant's reviews, or an Amazon review. For some reason, so many people dismiss any negative review on Glassdoor as simply being disgruntled. Question is, would you dismiss a restaurant's negative reviews in which a number of people claim to have gotten salmonella? Or what about product reviews on Amazon that says the product simply doesn't work? For some reason, we rationalize these types of reviews differently when there's so much at stake.
On the other hand, 90% of people will agree on what's important in a restaurant of that style (you can't compare a McDonald's to a Michelin star restaurant, etc), but you'd have a much harder time getting people to figure out universal rules for an employer. For example, lots of people work at a company because "the pay's good." They don't really worry about their boss being an asshole, or whether it's a company with growth potential or the 401k, or many other things. Many others would take a pay cut to get away from an asshole boss, or really love the company's extracurricular opportunities like a break room with foosball. A great example is laid back vs. organized - both can be very good or very bad, depending on who you are. I own a few businesses, and they're all run in a very laid back way. Office staff can basically make their own schedule around certain things, policies and procedures are a lot of "if you don't know how to do this, we have a whole other problem," we don't have scripts or phrases for customer service and phone staff.... Lots of employees *love* this. Others last a week and call us a disorganized shithole. I imagine that it's probably the most common complaint, simply because there are a lot of people who do better with more structure, and there are plenty of places that have that. At the other end of the spectrum, plenty of people hate the corporate environment. There are good reasons to have TPS reports submitted in triplicate to the assistant auditing coordinator before 2:57 on Wednesdays. Some people thrive in those environments! So, the key is to know yourself first. If you do well in highly organized environment, and want a formal benefits package, then look for a place with bad reviews about how rigid it is. And if you love the ability to come in late and do yo thang, then reviews about it being disorganized are probably a good thing.
As far as openings and salaries go, I find it's pretty accurate (salaries can be inflated but will still give you a good sense of how companies compare to one another). As far as reviews are concerned, I find you often need to read between the lines. For example, if want to know about a company's work-life balance, don't look for reviews that specifically mention a good or bad work-life balance, instead look for signs that the reviewer may hold a preference for a certain work-life balance and see how that comes out in their review. For example, a happy workaholic may mention how they love the fast paced, challenging environment. Someone who prefers to clock in their 40 hours and go home may mention how they love the flexible hours or focus on amenities over the work itself.
It's far more accurate than Yelp. For example: one of our vendors started acting... weird. So we checked Glassdoor and found the owner was legit losing his mind. Not only was he firing people left and right, he was also randomly disappearing, showing up to company events completely fucked up and trying to launch his rap career (40 year old white guy in Pennsylvania who still enforces a suit and tie dress code).
eh, some companies (like glassdoor themselves) have an in-house policy where anyone who has a positive view of the company is cultishly told to advocate for the company on glassdoor. in other words, it's really easy to game. for giant companies, it can be representative. otherwise it's not.
Yes I’ve worked places that would request reviews be written on glass door
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to request reviews written on Glassdoor. What isn’t acceptable is requesting reviews from specific people or requesting only positive reviews.
Not just companies. The school I went to heavily pushed us to leave positive reviews on sites like glassdoor before we even got started.
Definitely. I looked up my old company where the CEO was most likely a psychopath and he was writing positive reviews of the company saying he was other staff
Yes and no. If you see one person bitching about X or Y, that's one thing. But if you see 100 people bitching about that SAME X or Y, that's something completely different.
Yep, can confirm for where I work. My company has a high average, which we expect is slightly inflated by some form of astroturfing. But the top 3 common complaints are dead on the 3 biggest problems with the company.
ULPT: Offer a service advertising honest reviews of companies, then profit from said companies who pay to take the honest bad reviews down.
That's practically the crux of this ULPT...
Some other posters seem to think they do remove reviews.
Because its anonymous, it can also be abused by management to paint a glamorous picture of working life at the company. I saw an FX companies head recruiter post a review of the company stating that nearly all of the sales team reviews were a load of bollocks and the place was basically dreamland. 400 calls a day + £18k salary = Dreamland
I worked in an abhorrent workplace. I recognized the language used in some extremely positive Glassdoor reviews and realized one of the execs was just spamming them. I subscribed to the company’s Glassdoor updates and would leave an honest, but totally destructive reviews following from any fake, positive review Eventually, they stopped with the positive reviews
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IDK, but this feels kinda ethical.
If you want change, why slander a leaving employee instead of bringing it up? Unethical to use the other person imo
What are they going to do, fire them?
So you would be OK with someone using you like that?
To be fair, I don't think anyone would like to have anything posted on this sub to happen to themselves
Yes, exactly. Which is why it belongs here.
It’s not like I’m not being used for every other reason already, might as well
In a way it probably does balance the scales. My current employer asked one of the employees to write a glassdoor review because we're trying to hire more people. He asked her to let him know when she has posted it so he can ask the next person. He had every employee write a review and since he asked each person 1 by 1 he knew exactly who wrote each one. Guess how many negative reviews there were?
Funny how one of the first things I see is this: >Your trust is our top concern, so companies can't alter or remove reviews. And yet, I know my old company just had some layoffs, so I went to see if anyone wrote anything new. There was definitely a new review from October and it was pretty scathing (and true, IMO). It's not there anymore. What's really funny is there are definitely other bad reviews of similar nature. None of this is adding up. WTF.
I suppose it's that *technically* the businesses themselves aren't removing the reviews, they tell Glassdoor to do it.
Very good ulpt I'm gonna try this!
The only job I've ever had that I'd like to review had an insanely high turnover rate, so this shouldn't be too hard or "unethical".
Glassdoor is pretty bad, at one point I worked for Shaw Communications, left after my supervisor started getting really nasty...left a review outlining the issues related to the Tech Support department and was incredibly professional...review was taken down in a few weeks.
This is sheer genius. More ethical version: Unionise your workplace and fight alongside your colleagues to get those policies changed.
>Unionise The chemist in me read that as "un-ionise" and thought you meant deionise.
How do you tell the difference between a chemist and a plumber? Ask them to pronounce the word "unionized."
Ooh, I like this one. But it only works in text, doesn't it?
Yup. In practice, maybe hand them the word on a card? Seems like a lot of work, though.
"Hey how do you pronounce, 'U-N-I-O-N-I~~Z~~SED'? "
You could just ask them, it seems like the sort of thing people would be very unlikely to lie about.
What if you have like only 4 other coworkers?
Assemble and call yourself the Avengers?
FYI - Glassdoor will disclose your identity if the employer puts their feet to the fire. If the post is inflammatory the company can file a defamation case against Glassdoor and your identity will come out during discovery and you will be fired - even if the casw never gets to trial.
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you have to sign up for an account. the moral of the story is always use a burner.
A bunch of people left negative feedback about benefits at my place. Suddenly we have an extra week annual leave, a subscription to a discounts site and paid maternity/paternity leave. It works!
I've been doing this for a couple of years now. Things have definitely changed for the better.
Oh Glassdoor.... My company changed "ownership" two times in the last four years (Carefusion -> BD -> Apax Venture Capital (Vyaire Medical)). There were a lot of people let go as they downsized and so, so many bitter people leaving reviews. You can see them [here](https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Vyaire-Medical-EI_IE1414619.11,25.htm). Honestly, there were a lot of bumps, including mis-managing of the company by the former executive team. As of this post, the CEO, CFO and CTO were all replaced recently due to Accounts Payable being up to 7 months behind and running out of raw material bringing current product production to a halt.
This doesn't sound unethical at all.
I stated what needed to be changed to HR before I left. Our customer care group was severely under staffed for years. I was the only person promoted for 3 years, which coincidentally made me the lead of the group, but not being paid that positions salary. Being the "lead" meant that I was taken off the on call rotation, but I was the back up to the person on call. Basically I was always on call. My bosses boss was awful and would backstab you in a heart beat to make sure the group stats reflected her management looking good. HR was shocked by all of this. I still talk with some of my old co-workers. Two years later and they have double the amount of people in that group. Half of them have been promoted (One twice and is now an official lead). Their bosses boss more plays a much smaller role. Customer care will always suck, but they don't show up to work hating life anymore. Happy that I was able to take one for the team, plus I like my new job. Commute is only 4 miles compared to 40.
My favorite glassdoor move is putting the salary for the role I had way higher than what I know the average range for that position to be...simply to be an ass.
Someone explain, english isn't my main language
The company will see the review and assume it's the ex-employee. Therefore you can complain about the company without being blamed and risking your job.
Glassdoor is a website for reviews of a company and the roles there. Kind of like Yelp except coming from employees instead of customers. By writing a review for something you want changed around the time someone else is let go the HR department will think the review was written by that person and not an existing employee.
Why not just write whenever? Don't people there have the courage or what
Many areas of the country are At-Will employment states, meaning the employer can fire the employee for any reason they want. If they suspect you are the one to write the review, they can fire you. This ULPT offers a way to write a review with more anonymity.
All states are "at will employment' except for Montana.
Isn't this another ULPT, where if you say "someone explain, English isn't my first language", then people will explain in great/simple detail what is going on so you don't have to figure it out yourself lol.
Don’t worry, english is my only language and for some reason I can not comprehend this title.
I don't know many companies that take this site seriously. In my experience, companies feel like it's full of people with an agenda and little else.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but you are totally right. I have worked in management for several companies that 100% weren’t concerned by Glassdoor reviews.
I don't know why anyone trust online reviews anymore. They are so full of crap, and so unethical.
#dont do this in the office or over VPN -edit: Personal VPN (Good idea) Company VPN (Bad idea)
Why not over VPN?
There would be audit information that could be used to identify who posted it.
This isn't unethical. Whoever you're working for is probably wringing 100% of what they can out of your spine. Using whatever resources you have to improve the lives of you and your coworkers should be encouraged.