Adrian Watkins

HR Games the System.

It was weird seeing it as an actual email. It came after a huge company party, with free food, music, giveaways.
The headline read, “We want to hear from you!” It was from HR. The email went into this whole spiel about how the company’s goal was to become a Best Place To Work Tampa Bay.

At the end, it said, “If you love working here, we’d love for you to fill out a Glassdoor review.”

The modifier to that sentence was telling.

My eyes would roll: I was a bit salty. Between the interviews and Glassdoor reviews, I felt like my job had been misrepresented. Outside of the company parties, the place was hell for everyone: long hours, limited growth opportunities, huge workload, and endless office politics. You could end up in this same situation. Workforce marketing has become an act of deception.

There’s an incentive problem

Glassdoor brands itself as a place for transparency, but that isn’t what hits their bottom line.
Glassdoor is paid by companies who post jobs on their site, not by the people who write honest reviews. In turn, the two marketing efforts are in direct conflict.

Here’s what happens (in blunt, simple terms):

• Company X is paying Glassdoor a bunch of money to post on jobs.
• Suddenly, Company X starts doing layoffs. Naturally, their reviews start to plummet. Company X’s CEO gets mad at the reviews and yells at the HR manager who manages the vendor account with Glassdoor.
• Company X rep calls Glassdoor and threatens to pull all ads with them unless they do something about their reviews.
• Glassdoor doesn’t want to be a total pushover. They need credibility. In turn, they do a “review” of those one-star reviews, looking for other reasons to pull them (personal attacks, profanity, poor formatting).
• Suddenly, Company X has an upward trending rating in the middle of layoffs.

One very common legal tactic is for company lawyers to subpoena Glassdoor and threaten a lawsuit for defamation. Per their own policy, Glassdoor doesn’t usually respond to these threats, but quite often, those ugly one-star reviews quietly disappear.

Even further, when companies do this, Glassdoor is required to notify anyone who wrote ugly reviews that they’re at risk of being sued. This often leads them to delete their posts.

So now that authentic reviews have been removed, we go to the next step.

HR Games the System

I spoke with an HR manager who wanted to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. What I learned was eye-opening.
HR managers have performance metrics that relate to the brand of the company. This includes Glassdoor and achieving a very specific KPI for that rating. Consequently, a manager can simply pull a junior HR worker aside and “under the table” ask them to write a bunch of reviews.

It’s shockingly easy and relatively unpoliced. The employee just creates a few burner email accounts and spaces the reviews out by a week or two each. This tactic is pervasive in the industry.

The verification process is a massive joke too.

You could literally go online today, create an email account, and go write a review as the Former CFO.  Glassdoor would just email you and say, “You prooooomise you are telling the truth?!”

Spotting Fake Reviews

It’s an imperfect science but, generally, anytime someone uses absolutes in one direction or the other, “the very best/worst place worst place to work,” bullshittery is afoot.

Example – absolutely no cons? Really?
Additionally, when you look at Glassdoor averages, note where you see a sudden spike in their average. The above company had a three-star change over the course of several months (1.9 → 4.9).

Lastly, one of the most telling signs? If the review is gushing about how good the place is to work, but it says “former employee.”
If it was that good — why did you leave?

I spent years frustrated with the process of job hunts. I always felt like I was reading between the lines when talking to employers. Glassdoor just became an extension of that — but it’s only gotten worse.You used to be able to guess between two extremes on where the truth existed. Now? Good luck.

It’s understandable that companies want to market themselves to local talent. I actually think it’s great that they respond to reviews and offer feedback. But if they want to brand themselves as a positive workplace, perhaps they should just be a positive workplace. Put that energy there rather than spending resources painting a veneer of tranquility.

Until then, I encourage the rest of you to take Glassdoor with a grain of salt. As a general rule of thumb, remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is.

I have never been more grateful to work for myself.

This article first appeared here.