4 ms·

I saw my reviews on the interview process for IBM and couple of other companies disappear without trace. So my guess is their business model is trying to get co

I saw my reviews on the interview process for IBM and couple of other companies disappear without trace. So my guess is their business model is trying to get companies to pay to remove bad reviews.

gaius 8y ago
Glassdoor is hopelessly spammed by HR departments, “Advice to management: none, they are wonderful!” and so on.
- scarface74 8y ago
  This exactly. I worked for one company where everyone who left started posting bad reviews. The next thing you know people who were still there were posting wonderful reviews and getting an "official response" from the company.
- mayniac 8y ago
  My old company did that. PR sent an email to all staff saying "please leave us a good review on Glassdoor". I checked and the week before four new reviews had come up, all using the same writing style, all incredibly positive. Stuff like "negatives: you have to do lots of hours, but you're paid well so I don't mind" (spoiler alert: only half of that sentence was truthful). I reported all of them to Glassdoor and sent them the PR email, the reviews are still up months later. edit: just checked again and everyone left fairly truthful 1* reviews in a short period of time a few weeks after I left, I'm guessing they did another round of "please leave positive reviews" and it backfired.
  - conradfr 8y ago
    And for some reason these are the one that are displayed by the default "relevant" filter and the upvoted (more nuanced or critical) one are hidden.
    - mayniac 8y ago
      Just checked and yup, all the planted five star reviews are at the top despite having no more than one "helpful" reports. Negative reviews with up to ten "helpful" reports are on at least page two. This is while sorting by "popular". Seems to have taken the opposite strategy of Yelp, which bumps one star reviews to the top and makes companies pay to hide them. Or my ex-company is already paying, it's hard to tell.
      - bspn 8y ago
        Are they an "engaged employer" in the top right corner? If they are, my theory is that translates to "paying customer" hence the weighting given to the positive reviews.
        mayniac 8y ago
        Yes, they are. That theory makes a lot of sense tbh
rrdharan 8y ago
Isn’t that just because they only want reviews from current or former employees, not prospective ones?
- gaius 8y ago
  No, they solicit reviews from candidates and interns too.
remyrylan 8y ago
That's my suspicion as well. Years ago I consulted for an agency that was full of negative reviews on GlassDoor, I noticed each time I checked back every few months that a huge number of the previous negative reviews would be gone and their rating would be higher.
ryanbrunner 8y ago
In my experience, Glassdoor is highly motivated to investigate and potentially remove reviews due to complaints from companies paying them, and puts little to no effort into removing reviews due to complaints from everyone else. I won't go as far as to say that they remove reviews purely on request, but I've seen removals due to requests that were based on what I felt was a pretty shaky justification.

I saw my reviews on the interview process for IBM and couple of other companies disappear without trace. So my guess is their business model is trying to get companies to pay to remove bad reviews.

gaius 8y ago

Glassdoor is hopelessly spammed by HR departments, “Advice to management: none, they are wonderful!” and so on.

scarface74 8y ago
This exactly. I worked for one company where everyone who left started posting bad reviews. The next thing you know people who were still there were posting wonderful reviews and getting an "official response" from the company.
mayniac 8y ago
My old company did that. PR sent an email to all staff saying "please leave us a good review on Glassdoor". I checked and the week before four new reviews had come up, all using the same writing style, all incredibly positive. Stuff like "negatives: you have to do lots of hours, but you're paid well so I don't mind" (spoiler alert: only half of that sentence was truthful). I reported all of them to Glassdoor and sent them the PR email, the reviews are still up months later. edit: just checked again and everyone left fairly truthful 1* reviews in a short period of time a few weeks after I left, I'm guessing they did another round of "please leave positive reviews" and it backfired.
- conradfr 8y ago
  And for some reason these are the one that are displayed by the default "relevant" filter and the upvoted (more nuanced or critical) one are hidden.
  - mayniac 8y ago
    Just checked and yup, all the planted five star reviews are at the top despite having no more than one "helpful" reports. Negative reviews with up to ten "helpful" reports are on at least page two. This is while sorting by "popular". Seems to have taken the opposite strategy of Yelp, which bumps one star reviews to the top and makes companies pay to hide them. Or my ex-company is already paying, it's hard to tell.
    - bspn 8y ago
      Are they an "engaged employer" in the top right corner? If they are, my theory is that translates to "paying customer" hence the weighting given to the positive reviews.
      - mayniac 8y ago
        Yes, they are. That theory makes a lot of sense tbh

rrdharan 8y ago

Isn’t that just because they only want reviews from current or former employees, not prospective ones?

gaius 8y ago
No, they solicit reviews from candidates and interns too.

remyrylan 8y ago

That's my suspicion as well. Years ago I consulted for an agency that was full of negative reviews on GlassDoor, I noticed each time I checked back every few months that a huge number of the previous negative reviews would be gone and their rating would be higher.

ryanbrunner 8y ago

In my experience, Glassdoor is highly motivated to investigate and potentially remove reviews due to complaints from companies paying them, and puts little to no effort into removing reviews due to complaints from everyone else. I won't go as far as to say that they remove reviews purely on request, but I've seen removals due to requests that were based on what I felt was a pretty shaky justification.