Glassdoor.com: Employee Reviews of Companies

A while back, I asked whether we need an Angie's List for freelancers and clients.

Some time later, I discovered the web site www.glassdoor.com. It claims to be "a free career community where anyone can find and anonymously share an inside look at jobs and companies."

On Glassdoor, anyone can post a review of a company they have worked for. You can read reviews of companies you are thinking about interviewing with or working for. All reviews are anonymous.

They only let you look around for so long before restricting content and asking you to sign up for an account. But it's free as long as you post one review yourself.

The Pros and Cons

Glassdoor seems fairly new. Some companies have not been reviewed at all, while other companies have dozens of reviews. Check it out and post a review of a place you have worked.

Any web site that lets you post anonymous reviews is going to become a sounding board for disgruntled people to bitch about something they're not happy with. That's to be expected, I suppose. ("Jen's List" would be that way too; I'm leaning toward requiring a username or some other step up from total anonymity.)

I find the positive reviews (and the mixed reviews) on Glassdoor to be a lot more telling than the negative ones. With any online review, you have to take people's stories with a grain of salt, knowing that everyone's experience is different. But when someone is thoughtful and describes the experiences of several departments and/or co-workers, especially over time, then I'm a lot more likely to believe, and to value, that information.

The site's navigation and layout is mediocre -- it's easy to think you are on a page showing reviews, only to discover you are on a page showing job openings -- and you have to visually wade through the advertising.

Overall I think Glassdoor is an interesting site. I'll be visiting it periodically to see how it evolves.