Glassdoor reviews: how much should you care?

I've been wanting to write this post longer than this blog has been up. Since I have been working in marketing and employment branding, I regularly think about Glassdoor. For those of you unfamiliar, Glassdoor is a site that allows job seekers to view interviewee and employee reviews, salary data and job postings. Employers can use Glassdoor as a tool to tell their stories to job seekers. I'm in touch with the folks at Glassdoor fairly regularly, and I don't think they would have a problem with me sharing my opinion on how much I think you should care about what you see on Glassdoor, specifically when you are researching employers or preparing for interviews.

I'm going to do some plain-talking here and I will try to keep it PG-13 for those of you who don't know me socially. Here are my three big take-aways:

1. You should assume that a good percentage of the posts are written by opinion outliers.
2. You should assume that there is an element of truth in every post.
3. You should use what you find to ask questions, but only rarely should you use it to disqualify an employer from consideration. 

So before I go into any more detail, can we agree that with any job, at any employer, there's a certain amount of...well...crap (yeah, let's call it that), that you are going to have to deal with? Show me any employer you think is BS-free and I will show you an employee of that company who begs to differ. It's naive to assume that there are jobs that don't come with their own special variety of crap and the more honest you can be with yourself, especially during a career search, the better job you will do at picking the right employer for you. You're role, as a job-seeker, is to pick an employer with the brand of crap you find most acceptable. Glassdoor is going to help you decide. It's practically a menu of possible BS scenarios at employers. 

Aside from jobs, you know what else is potentially full-of it? Or who else, I guess? People. I'm not saying that people are trying to deceive. But we each come with our own ego and perspective, the latter often developed to protect the former. Think you're a rock star but then find out you are alone in your opinion? That shows up on Glassdoor as "this company doesn't pay well and their rewards system sucks!" The challenge with  the reviews on Glassdoor is that you don't get the context behind it and you have no idea whether the writer is someone whose opinion you should respect. People are often motivated to write a Glassdoor review when something has gone wrong, and a good part of the time, they contributed heavily to the situation themselves. Likewise with the glowing reviews - they likely come from people who have been treated extremely well and may not represent the opinion of the average employee. I guess I'd just encourage you to keep in mind that what you are seeing are the opinions of the disgruntled and, um, highly-gruntled employees (or former employees) and there's a heap of opinions somewhere in the middle that aren't showing up in the proper proportion.

Having said all that, I think you should consider that there is an element of truth in what you see. This is where I go back to the "pick your crap" mindset. For any employer, I expect to see issues described in Glassdoor reviews. If I don't, I'm suspicious. If I see someone posting about unrealistic performance expectations, I'm going to keep in mind that the company has high standards and actively manages against those standards. Yeah, so the person who posted the review might have been doing their best but they weren't a fit, they may have been a slacker or the employer may legitimately have unrealistic expectations. You just don't know. Even great companies have stuff like this that people don't like. 

As a job-seeker, I'd want to uncover what these potential issues are, as best I could. I find that the easiest way to do that is to identify themes in the reviews that are written in a really balanced way. Think about capturing these themes, especially as you are preparing to interview with a company. They will help you uncover the real scoop, they will show that you prepared, and asking about some of these things during an interview situation shows that you are also a buyer in this little hiring scenario. I mean, in demand folks have choices so of course you are going to ask some questions before you buy.

The one question I will warn you about, though (and really this is more about how you ask it and my warning could apply to many questions) is "what is the work/life balance like here?" Ah, work/life balance...such a loaded concept. Some companies or interviewers view this particular question as a red flag. Even if a company has great work/life balance (or work/life integration, if you prefer), they want people who are flexible enough to go the extra mile when needed. But it's a legitimate concern for anyone, especially folks with family commitments.  It's also a screening question for people who are clock-watchers. I really wish the question didn't raise red flags with some employers. I do recommend you ask questions to understand what kind of commitment you would really be getting yourself into. But I recommend questions that are more specific. "How many hours a week do you work?" doesn't count. Something like: "What are the expectations here around time away from the office? Do most employees log in at night?", "How much fluctuation is there in work load? Are there certain times of year that are busier than others?", "What's the company philosophy on disconnecting and are employees here good at it?"....even "How's your commute?" could give you a good idea. Obviously you will want to pick a really relevant question, but you get the point. 

So yeah, I do recommend that you use Glassdoor for research. I also recommend that you take it all with a grain of salt and do additional research where you can (like asking any people you know who work at the company what it's like).