Yeah, I left a negative review for a startup where I worked, and it was the first review (I actually had to create an entry for the startup in order to leave th

Yeah, I left a negative review for a startup where I worked, and it was the first review (I actually had to create an entry for the startup in order to leave the review). I tried to be balanced about the things that attracted me there in the first place, and the kind of person who might be able to last a while there, but noted the downsides that drove me out. Within a month, four more reviews, all 5-star reviews with "cons" sections like "none" or "I don't like this particular office snack" popped up for this company that had existed without reviews for years, all of which were very obviously in the unusual and quite-recognizable writing style of the head sales guy (who was constantly recruiting because of his habit of scapegoating his 3-or-4-person sales team when the company did poorly, and thus firing and replacing all of them), down to his particular mannerisms that I hadn't heard from anyone else (with the same wording appearing in multiple reviews). I flagged these reviews as obviously by the same author, one who was an "executive" employee of the company, and that I was willing to provide samples to prove it. I've since re-flagged those reviews a few times before realizing that Glassdoor has no interest in responding. Since then, it appears that the same guy has taken to requiring his new hires (of which he has many, due to his high churn rate from firing and replacing every single BDR/SDR regularly) to write at least one glowing review on Glassdoor, which has grossly inflated the company's score. The lesson I learned from this experience was to skim positive reviews looking for dangerous euphemisms ("more than just a job" means "no work-life balance", "like a family" means "unprofessional (and often backstabbing) working relationships", "fast-paced" / "driven" / "high-performer" means again that no work-life balance exists) count the number of negative reviews as a health indicator, and read negative reviews looking for repeated themes to identify real problems. For example, a smallish (50 or so people) company I considered in my last job hunt had several negative reviews that contained phrases like "CEO conducts a whisper campaign against employees he doesn't like", and "getting on the CEO's bad side is easy and damning", while positive reviews said things like "not everyone can adapt to our flat structure" or "it's not for everyone", or "if you can learn to fit in, it's great". That sent the clear signal: there is no real reporting chain, just the CEO's capriciousness, and the CEO plays favorites (or "unfavorites") arbitrarily and heavy-handedly. The verdict: avoid this company. As with any source of user-submitted reviews online, you have to learn a certain degree of cynicism in order to arrive at an informed decision.