[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.