{"id":60132,"date":"2023-12-05T15:06:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T07:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imoney.my\/articles\/?p=60132"},"modified":"2023-12-05T16:02:46","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T08:02:46","slug":"glassdoor-review-trustworthiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imoney.my\/articles\/glassdoor-review-trustworthiness","title":{"rendered":"Should You Trust Glassdoor Reviews?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cI wish I could leave my former employer a review, so that everyone knows what a terrible employer they are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Have you ever had a thought along these lines? Well did you know that nowadays, leaving a review on your former employer is something that a lot of people do?<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks to a website called Glassdoor, the former employees of any company can now leave a review of their time working there, letting any prospective employee know the good and the bad that might come to them during their time there.<\/span><\/p>\n But can you really trust Glassdoor reviews? Let\u2019s find out.<\/span><\/p>\n Glassdoor was first established in 2007, as a company ratings website. It compiles company reviews and real salaries anonymously to help prospective employees get a feel of the company that they are considering joining.<\/span><\/p>\n The founders of the website got the<\/span> idea<\/span><\/a> when one of them told a story of leaving an employee review form for a company he worked for on the printer, and what would happen if the results were revealed to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n So now that we understand what Glassdoor is, now let\u2019s get to the meat of the question. Are Glassdoor reviews trustworthy, and should you take it into consideration when choosing your next employer?<\/span><\/p>\n The short answer is, no. You should not assume the information provided is accurate. Why? Here are a few reasons why you should not take Glassdoor reviews as 100% accurate.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n For a company review website, one thing that should be considered important is the verification process for the reviews posted on the website.<\/span><\/p>\n First, we went to <\/span>Glassdoor<\/span><\/a> themselves to see what they say about their verification process.<\/span><\/p>\n In the terms and conditions, the company says that, \u201cconsidering the reality of our digital age, however, we’re unable to fully confirm our users’ identities, the truthfulness of their contributions, or their employment status.\u201d This means that Glasdoor themselves admit that they can\u2019t verify the truthfulness of their reviews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And this is the general consensus online as well. <\/span>According to several articles<\/span><\/a>, Glassdoor actually has <\/span>no real way<\/span><\/a> of <\/span>legitimately verifying reviews<\/span><\/a>. The only thing they can do is run the review through their content moderation team, and if it seems real, they will allow it to be posted on their site.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n The way Glassdoor works, they encourage their users to post reviews on their former employees.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, Glassdoor <\/span>requires its users to post a review every 12 months<\/span><\/a>, in order to navigate the website and view any company reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n This creates a situation where users will post a review on a former employee, no matter how much time has passed since the user last worked with the former employee.<\/span><\/p>\n Combined with the fact that Glassdoor doesn’t <\/span>remove older reviews,<\/span><\/a> this can create an unsavory situation, where a company is judged for how it was in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n Now this is not ideal, because let\u2019s say a user posted a negative review for a company that they worked with five years ago, you might think that the company still has those issues, even though a lot can change in five years.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n According to <\/span>studies<\/span><\/a>, people tend to write negative reviews more than positive reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, <\/span>the White House Office of Consumer Affairs<\/span><\/a> said this about negative reviews;<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience. Around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4-6 people about their experience,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Judging from this, it\u2019s safe to say that when you\u2019re going through the Glassdoor reviews for a particular company, you\u2019ll see a lot more negative reviews than positive reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n Which means that even a bulk of negative reviews might not mean that a company is a horrible place to work at.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Research from a blogger named <\/span>Gergely Orosz<\/span><\/a> stated that after layoffs or a slew of negative reviews, companies tend to set their HR department to correct said reviews, and improve their company\u2019s ratings.<\/span><\/p>\n This is done by flagging negative reviews on Glassdoor, and asking current employees to write glowing, positive reviews to improve their ratings.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, our research on Glassdoor also led us to a number of websites that offer \u201cnegative reviews removal service\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Websites like <\/span>Removify<\/span><\/a> and this <\/span>one right here<\/span><\/a> offers services to delete negative reviews on Glassdoor for any company that pays them, so that the company will look more appealing to prospective employees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n And finally, another reason why it can be very hard for anyone to trust Glassdoor reviews is that there is a massive imbalance in the ratio of reviews to employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>What is Glassdoor?<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>How do Glassdoor reviews work and can you trust them?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>No verification process for reviews<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/span>Reviews can be super outdated<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/span>People tend to post more negative reviews<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/span>An \u2018alleged\u2019 history of manipulated reviews<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/span>The ratio of reviews to employees are very skewed<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n