[pcurve]

I think the main problem with Glassdoor's rating system is, it can attract high number of negative reviews when a company is going through rough patches, such as mergers and acquisitions, lay offs and integrations. Then it's going to be a steep uphill battle to climb out of that hole and improve the average scores. If I were job hunting, I'd only look at reviews written in the past 18 months because things can and do improve quickly.

[justin66]

> If I were job hunting, I'd only look at reviews written in the past 18 months because things can and do improve quickly.

I can offer one counterexample. I worked at a fairly awful place two and a half years ago and the Glassdoor reviews reflected that awfulness. At some point in the last year, management got wise and started planting hilariously, obviously fake positive reviews to go alongside the negative reviews. HR also started leaving comments on every single review, which had a chilling effect.

The average rating would certainly be higher over the past 18 months, but it's not because anything has improved at the company. They're just better at exploiting Glassdoor.

[pcurve]

Yes, I've witnessed that myself. On the flip side, those fake reviews:

1. Are usually hilariously easy to spot. 2. Beget more angry reviews with 1 star rating in attempt to neutralize their effect.

Hence, I'd read them pretty carefully to look for patterns.

[Clubber]

Yes, I was thinking about that earlier. I would suggest lowering the strength of ratings the older they get when calculating the average, so:

  This year's average is 50% of total rating
  Last year's average is 30% of total rating
  Previous year's average is 10% of total rating
  All prior years' average is remaining 10% of total rating

Instead of years, it could be a rolling year, so average of last 52 weeks would be 50%, prior week 53-104 would be 30%, etc.

[tragic]

But they can also not improve quickly. I used to work for a company in a declining industry which was in a precarious position, and there were layoffs and profit warnings and such. (Glassdoor rating: 2.5.) the company continues to exist, but there have been more layoffs etc.

So at the very least, a wave of negative reviews is an indication to check the fundamentals, has this pivot worked, etc... Useful information.

[emodendroket]

That doesn't seem that unreasonable though. If a company is going through a rough merger I'd like to know that.

[lovich]

Is it bad to get those negative reviews? If the situation is legitimately bad why should prospective employees care? It's not like the companies are going to take an employees personal life into consideration when they fire them