[sonaltr]

A few friends of mine work for a company that most would consider terrible. I know for a fact that when ex employees do leave bad reviews, they have a line to call Glassdoor, and get it taken down under promise of buying a new subscription or renew existing subscriptions.

I know this because it's one of my friend's responsibilities - He does this on a monthly basis (based on the whims of the owner)

The main use of Glassdoor as an employee is not the company reviews - it's for interview questions.

[52-6F-62]

> The main use of Glassdoor as an employee is not the company reviews - it's for interview questions.

I'll add that it's salary survey information as well. Similarly with Indeed. They've saved me a lot of time when I've had companies want to set me up with unpaid hours upon hours of interviews and testing while offering effectively half of what I was seeking, with few other benefits.

At one company, the reviews did inform me, and in numbers, that they promoted pair programming to the extent that you were assigned a fixed station and shared that station with another—not as onboarding, but as a fixture of your role. I killed that one, and fast.

That said, I view all the other reviews with a high degree of skepticism. I prefer to talk to people directly to get a feel.

[digitalixus]

> I'll add that it's salary survey information as well.

Not really. Here in Germany (where Glassdoor isn't even as popular as in US/English speaking countries) I've noticed the salary skews towards the low end because A) employers are bombing their profiles with fake salary figures and/or B) entry-level to lower-mid tier employees are more likely to drop numbers. Can't imagine how much worse the propagation of false info is in other countries where Glassdoor is more popular.

Specifically in Berlin, where "bErLiN iS a PoOr N cHeAp CiTy So ThE sAlArIeS aReN't HiGh" might as well be a meme because it's the standard welcome message for foreigners, if you negotiate your pay based on Glassdoor info, you're going to be screwing yourself out of thousands of €€€.

None of the non-tech crowd is going to admit they're being paid 55-65k brutto (before taxes) with 3-5 years of experience. I know people like this and have seen their payslips so I know they aren't lying. You only hear about the non-techies making 24-35k from their small startups or Zalando.

Same for dev/tech. You'll only hear the same bit of info that "45-60k is a LOT for a dev with 5-10 years experience, because cost of living in Berlin is low (it's not) so come on over and relocate!". The devs/engineers making 65k starting with 2 years of experience, mid-level devs pulling 70-90k and management/directors pulling 120-200k in Berlin aren't opening their mouths.

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I'd say there's a concerted effort in Europe to keep salaries down by keeping information suppressed/spreading lies (I see this a lot on Reddit/HN too in the form of comments)

[52-6F-62]

Honestly hadn't considered that they might be doing that as well.

Just the same, if the company is trying to bomb average salaries, then they're posting that they don't pay what I want and I'm avoiding them anyway. (and it sounds like a good thing if that's how they operate)

But good points. It's certainly something to be skeptical about, even if one doesn't want to go full tin-foil about it. ;)

[souprock]

No, that is nonsense.

According to Glassdoor, my workplace supposedly pays highly specialized engineering talent about the same as they'd get flipping burgers. The claim is $44,000 for experienced cleared vulnerability researchers in San Antonio.

This, I'm sure, is impacting recruiting. Such a low value is below our minimum for a freshman college intern in the office with the lowest cost of living.

[52-6F-62]

Wow. I haven’t seen it that dramatically bad here in Toronto, after cross-referencing.

As another user mentioned there seems to be an attempt at downward pressure. I hadn’t thought of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Sadly.

[souprock]

Where is the motive?

We sure didn't make such a post. I suppose a competitor could have done it, intending to create downward pressure by making other employers (like us) look bad. Can you see a motive for Glassdoor to do this on their own?