Negative reviews seem to be pretty reliable, you have to have a motivation to post them, even if the content may not be objectively accurate. I worked for a company with terrible management and every time an employee would leave they would leave a negative review.
However, glassdoor is not completely objective-- companies can get negative reviews removed simply by complaining about them, and the quality control on this is not good. So that means that over time the HR department can just keep making accounts and complaining about the negative reviews and they disappear.
Thus if you leave a negative review you have to be a watchdog... and if it gets removed, even without cause, glassdoor won't let you leave another one.
However they can't hold back the tide, here's a comment from a recent review (redacted for privacy):
" Forced "culture". It's explicitly stated that culture fit is a huge part of this backwards company. If you are too tired to go to a happy hour when the XXXX crew comes to town prepare for awkward questions why and being told you're not supporting the culture if you don't attend - by the CTO."
Reading the reviews of this company (that I worked at and know first hand) I see a lot of negative recent reviews, but the overall score is 2.4... way too high to be accurate.
HR is still grooming the reviews and leaving fake positives, to keep that overall rating up, and the negatives are all relatively recent (though they describe problems that have existed for 5 years.)
There are all kinds of motivations to post a negative review, and not all of those motivations map "reliably" to accuracy. Leaving a job can be traumatic for employees for reasons that have nothing to do with the company's culture or behavior--a disgruntled employee fired for cause has a strong motivation to leave a bad review, but that doesn't mean it is reliable.
Glassdoor has the same pros and cons of any review aggregator. It is susceptible to gaming (perhaps uniquely so, like Yelp, because the companies being reviewed are also Glassdoor's advertisers). But it provides a directionally accurate view of a corporate environment given a large enough sample size of reviews--and as with any review, more credence should be given to examples that are clear, detailed and well-written.
The conflict of interest (companies are also advertisers) is powerful, and it appears to be exerting a significant effect on the directional reliability of aggregate reviews for any company large enough to be a major advertiser. Companies can badger Glassdoor into removing negative reviews, and Glassdoor will ask few to no questions before taking summary and unappealable action in the company's favor.
The negative reviews are pretty much the only interesting data points on the site. Take them with a grain of salt, sure. But you have to take the positives (especially large cohorts of positives over short time intervals) with the whole freaking salt shaker. The aggregate scores offer some directional guidance, but bear in mind that you are not looking at the total sample size of reviews; you are looking at the sample size after the company has culled and gamed what it can, which is often quite a lot of the original pool.
This is sort of like the directional reliability of eBay scores, now that there is a short decay on past reviews, and pretty much anyone with 10 minutes on their hands can get negative reviews expunged.
> Negative reviews seem to be pretty reliable, you have to have a motivation to post them, even if the content may not be objectively accurate.
I agree with this. I'm usually more suspect of the glowing, very positive reviews, particularly a bunch in a row within a certain time period. I've read at least once that I can remember where employers were essentially providing incentives for employees to go out and write positive things on Glassdoor, in an effort to clean up its image on that site.
I'd say look for themes. I'm interviewing with a company right now where the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, but I've turned the mental alarms off for now because it's totally backed up by all of my interaction with anyone associated with the place. Genuinely great culture in play. I only say this to balance out any message I might be giving to not trust any positive reviews.
You really are best off reading through and looking for themes, rather than relying on the aggregate ratings, or categorical statements of "good" and "bad" in any particular review. Culture is totally subjective, so look for a description of what that culture is, versus whether the reviewer thinks its good or bad.
Hmm... I generally only leave positive reviews for goods and services. My thinking has been that satisfied people don't generally take the time to write reviews, while unhappy people will invest the time and energy.
I figure that adding a negative review is only going to add to the noise. So, I usually avoid doing so unless it is particularly egregious.
This means that I also weigh the good reviews heavier than I do the negative reviews. I do try to keep an eye out for fluff reviews and try to ignore those. No, this product didn't 'literally save your life' and things like that. Many of the negative reviews read like they didn't understand the product or service and are displeased that it didn't meet their goals, which would be expected because it didn't claim to meet those goals.
It does make me wonder if there's a way to ensure honest and objective reviews. I doubt there is, but we may be able to make the system better.
2.4 is pretty low in my experience. My first check when looking into a company is usually Glassdoor and anything below mid 3's is a pretty strong negative signal, at the very least that satisfaction is largely dependent on team. Mid 3's and higher and generally people are satisfied regardless of what team they're on or how high on the ladder they are.
However, glassdoor is not completely objective-- companies can get negative reviews removed simply by complaining about them, and the quality control on this is not good. So that means that over time the HR department can just keep making accounts and complaining about the negative reviews and they disappear.
Thus if you leave a negative review you have to be a watchdog... and if it gets removed, even without cause, glassdoor won't let you leave another one.
However they can't hold back the tide, here's a comment from a recent review (redacted for privacy): " Forced "culture". It's explicitly stated that culture fit is a huge part of this backwards company. If you are too tired to go to a happy hour when the XXXX crew comes to town prepare for awkward questions why and being told you're not supporting the culture if you don't attend - by the CTO."
Reading the reviews of this company (that I worked at and know first hand) I see a lot of negative recent reviews, but the overall score is 2.4... way too high to be accurate.
HR is still grooming the reviews and leaving fake positives, to keep that overall rating up, and the negatives are all relatively recent (though they describe problems that have existed for 5 years.)