I look at trends by job titles and I look for consistent incidental remarks, not negativeness or positiveness. Example of the first: when evaluating one employ

I look at trends by job titles and I look for consistent incidental remarks, not negativeness or positiveness. Example of the first: when evaluating one employer there were many negative reviews, but mostly from a particular high-churn part of the company; the experience of easy-come easy-go customer-facing support may not tell you much about the experience of someone even one level removed from that position. The odd positive review was usually a higher-level tech, and even if they had a negative outlook on the company or its future, such reviews would still add "but don't listen to these guys--they just couldn't hack it." Example of the second, same company: it's very easy to get hired by this company but training is limited and you could just as easily get fired for poor performance -- i.e., the company's hiring requirements were significantly less than their actual on-the-job skill requirements. So I applied to this company based on mostly negative reviews. I was aiming for a higher position, and I was confident in my ability while having very little evidence of it: if their hiring requirements had actually matched the job I got, I would never have gotten it.