As the world of job seekers becomes increasingly interested in transparency, Glassdoor stands out as one of the web’s best tools to gain information. The platform offers a robust job board, but what makes it stand out is its crowd-sourced information about each company’s culture, interview process, and salaries.
Glassdoor helps job seekers review a company before applying. Companies have overall ratings, details about the work environment, and reviews that help prospects see if they’re applying to a good company.
Overview of Glassdoor
The mission of Glassdoor.com, which is headquartered in San Francisco, is to provide all job seekers with advanced insight into companies and create greater transparency for career development.
The pandemic has changed the course for many professionals. For those looking for a new job, be it as a software engineer, product manager, or anything in between, Glassdoor is a wealth of information for anyone looking for a great work opportunity.
Crowd-sourced, unfiltered reviews
By allowing users to provide information on their role, salary, interview process, great benefits, and other perks, Glassdoor is able to access a huge amount of data that is otherwise not available to recruiting platforms, including over 110 million individual reviews of companies.
Easy to search
Glassdoor’s job search functionality is on par with other popular services, allowing for specific searches and the ability to apply through the website.
No paywall, but you’re asked to share
Salary ranges and company rankings make it unique, and they persuade users to enter this information by using it in place of a paywall. To read reviews, you’re asked to submit anonymous reviews or your own salary. A user account also offers access to educational resources and job alerts.
Pros
- Glassdoor has access to a huge amount of crowd-sourced data that other job boards could not organically gather.
- A combination of reviews, CEO rankings, salaries, and insights on compensation and benefits makes it easy for job seekers to review a prospective company.
- As one of the most popular job boards, Glassdoor is used by most major employers, and there are a large number of new jobs posted daily.
- Glassdoor allows you to upload your resume to your profile and apply for jobs through an Easy Apply feature in many cases.
- In addition to company rankings and salaries, Glassdoor allows people to share their experience interviewing with a company, making preparation easier.
- There is no cost for job seekers to use Glassdoor or any of its features. The only requirement is to register and provide anonymous information on your current or past career opportunities to help them get more data.
Cons
- Glassdoor sources their data from their users, so you do have to register in order to use any review features or see salaries.
- Registration is simple and free, but some people may not be comfortable providing their own information as the website requests.
- The job listings are comprehensive and easy to navigate, including filters and searches by things like job type, title, salary, location, and keywords.
- Jobs posted to Glassdoor are more often professional-level jobs rather than things like manual labor or local retail positions.
- Not all companies have a lot of information, and ratings can be skewed by overly positive or overly negative individual reviews.
- Users report that data on job descriptions themselves are not always accurate, with location data and whether a job can be done remotely often cited as being incorrect.
- The advanced search options on Glassdoor’s job board are limited, with only a few filters available to users.
Glassdoor features
Company rankings and reviews
Each company on Glassdoor, from New York to Los Angeles, is given its own company profile to serve as a repository for any information available. This includes basic data like a description, industry, location, and the number of employees.
Each organization is also given a rating out of 5 stars based on the reviews of current and former employees, who can rank not just the overall company but different aspects of a great culture or a not-so-great culture.
Written reviews are also published that allow for a listing of both good and bad aspects of the company and information on what role the reviewer had. These profiles allow for a better understanding of company initiatives, its collaborative work environment, and human resource details. It might even include intel on senior leadership.
Salaries and benefits
In addition to subjective reviews of a company, users of Glassdoor are asked to include their role, location, and salary and bonus structure on the website. This data is available to review on each company’s profile, including filtering by things like years of experience, to help a user understand how much they can expect to make at an organization.
The salary data is one of Glassdoor’s biggest draws and assets, as it brings a level of transparency that is rarely available elsewhere. Along with compensation structure, there is also the ability to provide information on your benefits package and time off information, which can be helpful for potential employees who want to know if certain needs will be met at an organization.
Interview information
It isn’t just employees who can provide valuable information about a company on Glassdoor. Anyone who has been through the interview process is able to share information about the experience they had that can help future interviewees prepare. This includes specific interview questions, how they got the interview, what steps were taken, and the outcome of the interview itself.
There is also a ranking of the interview process as easy or difficult and positive or negative. Senior management usually keeps a tight lid on interview processes, so this information can be invaluable, especially at in-demand companies.
Job board and alerts
The job board on Glassdoor operates at parity with many other job boards, with a large number of opportunities posted per day. These do include extra information like potential salary when available but otherwise, allow for sorting on the normal fields like location and title.
Users can set up alerts for jobs that meet certain criteria via email or the mobile application so that they are aware of new opportunities that they may be interested in.
Easy apply
User profiles on Glassdoor allow you to attach a resume and include work history so that your information is always available and up to date. Many applications are then integrated with Glassdoor, which offers an “Easy Apply” option to automatically submit your information.
While this isn’t available for every posting, it’s very common to see on the website and can make the process of applying much smoother. This is especially useful for people who choose to use the Glassdoor mobile app and don’t have access to files on their devices.
Know your worth
The Know Your Worth tool in Glassdoor is designed to help individuals understand what the ideal salary for them should be in the current job market. Based on the existing salary data in Glassdoor, a user can input their current or desired job title, location, and any employers they are interested in and be given an estimate of their potential earnings.
The output also includes potential career and pay trajectories, related job titles, and open jobs that meet their desires.
Other job sites like ZipRecruiter offer in-depth salary analysis where you can compare salary averages to those in specific cities or see salaries in a related field.
Glassdoor pricing
For job seekers, Glassdoor is free, with no premium subscriptions or paid tiers available. Instead, the way to access information on the website is by providing your own information on past and current employers. This data exchange is how the company keeps new information flowing while offering it up for free.
Employers can post jobs for free but are more likely to pay for services. The pricing for these plans is not listed publicly and requires a company to contact Glassdoor directly.
Glassdoor customer service
Glassdoor offers an extensive help page specific to job seekers, including many prebuilt articles and troubleshooting information. If needed, users can fill out a contact form for direct support via email. There is no phone support or live chat support available for users.
Glassdoor offers an extensive help page specific to job seekers, including many prebuilt articles and troubleshooting information. If needed, users can fill out a contact form for direct support via email. There is no phone support or live chat support available for users.
FAQs
Is Glassdoor a reputable site?
Yes, Glassdoor is a very reliable and reputable site. While employees can submit information, there are processes in place for employers and Glassdoor to review information for accuracy. Job seekers and employers both use Glassdoor for advertising good work opportunities and hiring the best candidate.
Can Glassdoor reviews be trusted?
Glassdoor reviews are generally trustworthy, though, of course, all information is subjective, and you are likely to see extremely happy or extremely unhappy employees more often than the middle ground.
However, there is a process that allows employers to flag inaccurate information, and Glassdoor reviews these cases. Anything flagrantly untrue or suspicious is also removed from the website.
How do I find a company’s reviews?
On Glassdoor, you can search a company name to find their profile. The main page will be the company’s basic information and employer brand rated on a scale of five stars. From there, you can navigate to a “Reviews” section that will show you all reviews, starting with the most recent. You can also filter and sort these on a number of datasets.
Can you read Glassdoor reviews without signing up?
No, reviews and salary information, as well as interview details and benefits, require a Glassdoor account. Creating an account is free and quick, but they do require you to share your own employment information to be used anonymously for their data.
Other job sites, like LinkedIn, don’t offer company and employee reviews.
What are some good benefits of Glassdoor?
Glassdoor is unique in that the goal is to give job seekers as much information as possible. Access to salary, benefits, employee satisfaction, and interview information is unavailable in many other places. Glassdoor’s job board also integrates with this information and allows easy application options, making it simple to use.
Do Glassdoor reviews show how employees feel about their company?
Yes, Glassdoor reviews allow employees at all levels to share how they feel about their company both through rankings, answering questions, and written reviews. Employees are free to share any feelings, though they may be questioned if they are excessively negative or inappropriate. There is no incentive for employees to lie about their experiences. Anonymous employees can leave reviews too.
What are some of the most popular companies on Glassdoor?
Looking for an amazing company to work for? Glassdoor releases a list of the Best Places to Work each year based on the ratings and reviews their users provide. In 2022, this included NVIDIA, Hubspot, Bain & Company, eXp Realty, and Box.
There is a separate list for small companies, which included KlientBoost and Grover Gaming. You can also search rankings for a particular location.
What is a common complaint in Glassdoor reviews?
Negative reviews on Glassdoor often focus on employees that feel overworked, underpaid, or underappreciated. The exact details can vary, but a negative experience will most likely be shared when one of these factors contributes. There are also a lot of reviews about work/life balance, healthcare gaps, layoffs, and disapproval of CEOs or upper management.
How do I post a review on Glassdoor?
When you sign up for Glassdoor, you will be prompted to share your employment history, including a company that you work for or worked for. Once you have identified this company, you are asked to submit a review. If you want to review an additional company, you can search for their page and navigate to the Reviews tab, which has the option to write a review.
How do you know if a review is authentic?
Job seekers should be wary of reviews that sound stilted or offer grand promises like unlimited PTO.
Spikes in reviews around a certain time frame can also indicate that employees were asked to write reviews that offer a positive outlook of a great company.
Are my reviews on Glassdoor anonymous?
Yes, your personal information is not shared with your employer or anyone reading the website, whether you leave a positive review or a negative one. Don’t include your location and title to avoid tipping off current employers.