Glassdoor shatters Silicon Valley images

June 11, 2008

Glassdoor “Real life at Google has NOTHING to do with what you read in the papers. Management is mostly useless and doesn’t know how to manage projects, let alone people.”

So says an anonymous product marketing manager for the internet leader on Glassdoor.com, a website launched today that lets employees compare salaries and opinions about the places where they work.

The service provides a fascinating insight into corporate cultures in Silicon Valley, a place whose workforce always seems to have half an eye on the next job opportunity.

Google actually gets a pretty good rating as a place to work - averaging 4.2 out of 5 from reviewers.

A user experience designer writes:

“Google is an extraordinary place to work: the perks are second to none, the quality of employees is exceptionally high, and the products are mostly cutting edge and interesting. Google treats its employees very well and believes in leadership from the bottom up.”

That of course matches the public perception of Google, so descriptions that debunk company images make the more interesting reading.

“They will try to work you to death,” says a senior product manager at Cisco Systems (employee satisfaction rating 4.3).

“I would like a few more video games to play and possibly a shuttle in San Francisco just for the SF office but you can’t have the world,” says a more reasonable criticism from a Yahoo employee (satisfaction rating 3.7).

However, Jerry Yang, the chief executive who has been fighting a Microsoft takeover, gets only a 59 per cent approval rating, compared to 88 per cent for his counterpart Eric Schmidt at Google, its biggest rival.

Glassdoor says it reviews all submissions before publishing and requires a valid email address, which does not seem to rule out abuses of the system.

It is not the first to provide a forum to rant about your company and compare notes with other workers. Jobvent.com, Employerscorecard.com, Vault.com and Salary.com all do similar jobs.

Glassdoor is focused on Silicon Valley high-tech companies and New York financial services firms. It also does not try to make itself a source for job classifieds and sees more of an affinity with review sites as people travel from job to job.

“Our beta launch is just the first step toward Glassdoor becoming the TripAdvisor of the workplace,” says Robert Hohman, Glassdoor’s chief executive.

5 Responses to “Glassdoor shatters Silicon Valley images”

Comments

  1. […] or to deceive. From jealousy to enmity, all kinds of dark motivations can move people to submit negative comments or inaccurate salary […]

    Posted by: Moving From Me To We.com » Blog Archive » “what the Brady Bunch would be like … | June 16th, 2008 at 10:20 pm | Report this comment
  2. theres also another site to rate companies and it is easier to navigate, totally anonymous and no log in. check it out

    www.employeessoundoff.com

    Posted by: angellisa | June 19th, 2008 at 4:00 am | Report this comment
  3. I think what Glassdoor is doing is important, I recently wrote about it on our blog http://paidinterviews.com/blog/ , feel free to check it out.

    Posted by: Keith Robison | June 19th, 2008 at 4:40 am | Report this comment
  4. This concept already exists. Check out the first website www.thesmartpro.org to create this much before glassdoor.com. Smartpro is better same without the unwanted details. How many employees want to know the approval rating of the CEO before deciding to accept the offer?

    Smartpro is neat, it classifies the responses under categories that are important and relevant to employees. It’s free and not for profit!

    It does not have millions of dollars to promote like Glassdoor but is quietly aiming to provide newletters, jobs, reviews, ratings, industry benchmarks et al. All for free.

    check it out at www.thesmartpro.org

    Posted by: Smartpro Guy | June 30th, 2008 at 9:43 pm | Report this comment
  5. It appears that Glassdoor gives the true inside view of Silicon Valley companies and how they treat their employees…….interesting website.

    Posted by: Arabbible | September 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pm | Report this comment

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