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I imagine comparing benefits across companies is hard, but there are some weird, arbitrary things here that don't make sense. Example: Looking at Salesforce, i

I imagine comparing benefits across companies is hard, but there are some weird, arbitrary things here that don't make sense. Example: Looking at Salesforce, it's got three big red X's next to "Free Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner". Ok, so I guess Salesforce doesn't have these things (and notably, the red X makes it seem like Salesforce is being "dinged" for this). But then I look at Microsoft, and it has "Free Snacks" and "Free Drinks" listed with green check marks next to them. But then it doesn't list "Free Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner" at all. Does Microsoft offer free meals? If yes, why isn't it listed? If no, still why isn't it listed, but with a red X next to it, like Salesforce? This is the case for a lot of companies and benefits. Other stuff seems wrong or very situational. Stuff like "On-site gym" is highly dependent on your office location, and I see companies that have a red X next to it when I know for a fact that many of their offices do have gyms, while I know that some of the companies that have it listed with a green check do not have gyms at all office locations. Also, all of the health insurance stuff is pretty meaningless without more info about the actual insurance offered, and there's a lot of missing information about supplemental insurance, or other uncommon forms of insurance like legal group insurance. edit: I see now that the way this works is based on user submissions, and you can choose "Null", "Benefit Available", and "Benefit Not Available". IMO, "Null" shouldn't be an option at all. Either a company offers some form of the benefit or it does not. There is no "blank".

Zaheer 6y ago
I'm from Levels.fyi. You're right, benefits are fairly hard to compare as it can vary by location and specifics of various perks. We're still working on gathering more data. The red X's appear when we've gotten a report confirming the benefit is not present. If we don't have a report for a specific benefit, nothing is shown. While it is true 'null' should not be an option, we wanted to be able to collect some data even if a contributor does not know the full scope of benefits which is often the case. The initial set of companies was sourced directly from employees / HR / recruiters at these companies. We're working on adding more details around location for each benefit. You can also contribute here: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/add.html https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/add.html This is just a start. We appreciate the community contributing and are continuously updating the page.
- txcwpalpha 6y ago
  Once I saw what the data collection form looks like, this makes more sense to me. My feedback as a user is that if you don't have a report for a benefit, you should still show it but indicate that its status is unknown. As it is, showing a red X next to a benefit for one company while not listing it at all for another company seems like you are unfairly "punishing" the first company while giving the second one a pass, when in reality you just don't have enough data (which is fine and understandable, but should be shown). Also, this may or may not be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if showing "Unknown" next to some benefits encouraged people to actually submit their knowledge of if that benefit exists or not. As the saying goes, if you really want to get someone's input on the internet, just put something that might be wrong and wait for someone to correct you ;)
  - Zaheer 6y ago
    Excellent points - I'll work on adding this in the next few days.

Zaheer 6y ago

I'm from Levels.fyi. You're right, benefits are fairly hard to compare as it can vary by location and specifics of various perks. We're still working on gathering more data. The red X's appear when we've gotten a report confirming the benefit is not present. If we don't have a report for a specific benefit, nothing is shown. While it is true 'null' should not be an option, we wanted to be able to collect some data even if a contributor does not know the full scope of benefits which is often the case. The initial set of companies was sourced directly from employees / HR / recruiters at these companies. We're working on adding more details around location for each benefit. You can also contribute here: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/add.html https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/add.html This is just a start. We appreciate the community contributing and are continuously updating the page.

txcwpalpha 6y ago
Once I saw what the data collection form looks like, this makes more sense to me. My feedback as a user is that if you don't have a report for a benefit, you should still show it but indicate that its status is unknown. As it is, showing a red X next to a benefit for one company while not listing it at all for another company seems like you are unfairly "punishing" the first company while giving the second one a pass, when in reality you just don't have enough data (which is fine and understandable, but should be shown). Also, this may or may not be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if showing "Unknown" next to some benefits encouraged people to actually submit their knowledge of if that benefit exists or not. As the saying goes, if you really want to get someone's input on the internet, just put something that might be wrong and wait for someone to correct you ;)
- Zaheer 6y ago
  Excellent points - I'll work on adding this in the next few days.