What You Need to Know About Glassdoor

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Glassdoor created a database of company reviews and CEO ratings, as well as interview and benefits information from existing and former employees who post anonymously. Details about salaries and other information regarding what it’s really like to work at a business from interview to exit are provided. The data are available to the public.

So, what lessons have been learned from Glassdoor’s data—from its start in the Great Recession of 2008 to its rapid growth along with today’s evolving mobile job market?

  • The fit between your company and its employees matters a lot for both employees and employers. The highest-rated companies on Glassdoor index high on their Culture and Values attributes.
  • Location and cost of living were two of the three factors rated as important to job seekers.
  • Satisfaction on the job is always a big issue and has pushed some less-than-well-known metro areas into the spotlight because their corporate citizens were fostering great workplace environments.
  • Glassdoor ratings and reviews help job seekers find their dream job or sidestep what could have been a horrible experience. This sort of matchmaking helps reduce bad-fit turnover, which may ultimately contribute to greater productivity.
  • Nothing tells you more about a company than how it treats its employees during both good and hard times. Your company’s reputation is not built overnight—it must authentically and intrinsically tie into your mission and values. Recognize that you influence candidates and can enhance recruiting efforts, as well as influence your customers, partners, investors and other stakeholders, through the reputation you build.
  • Job seekers want to work in a company where they’re treated with respect and paid fairly.
  • The reputation a company has on Glassdoor has been used to vet potential client companies.

How does Glassdoor work?

  • Glassdoor averages reported salaries, posting the averages alongside the reviews of management and the firms’ culture. Office photographs and other company-relevant media posts are allowed.
  • It focuses on workplaces, describing what it’s like to work at jobs in general. Employee reviews are averaged for each company. Glassdoor ratings are based on user-generated reviews.
  • Each year, Glassdoor ranks overall company ratings to determine its annual Employees’ Choice Awards, which have become known as the Best Places to Work Awards. You can believe that each review of a company comes from real employees—Glassdoor verifies that through technological checks of email addresses and through screenings by a content management team.
  • Glassdoor rejects about 20 percent of its entries after screening. Rules for posting reviews are different for smaller companies than for larger companies, especially because it’s important to preserve the anonymity of people in close departments.
  • In 2010, Glassdoor released a fee-based program called Enhanced Employer Profiles, and in it you can include your own content in Glassdoor profiles—executive biographies, classifieds, social media links, and referrals.

Glassdoor produces reports based on data from users’ posts about:

  • Work-life balance.
  • CEO pay rates.
  • Lists of best office cultures.
  • Accuracy of job-searching maxims.

You may want to use the information on Glassdoor to produce estimates about the effects of salary trends and changes in firms’ revenues—or read what others have deciphered from the data.

Glassdoor receives feedback daily from its users, and its existence has proved that workplace transparency is key. Recruiting methods may have evolved over the past decade, but one thing remains constant for most job seekers—they want a job where they are satisfied with the work they do. These days, Glassdoor is seen as a more trustworthy source of information than career guides or official company documents.