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EMPLOYER REVIEW AND jobs platform Glassdoor has launched a dedicated site catering to Irish workers ahead of opening a new European headquarters in Dublin.
The US-based company, which began life in 2008, already has 26,000 employer reviews, interview descriptions and salary reports relating to Irish roles, but now it will add tweaks to provide more-relevant information as well as local iOS and Android apps.
Glassdoor runs on a ‘give to get’ model, which gives users full access to employer information once they’ve posted a review or report about a company on the site.
Ireland will get the ninth territory-specific site from the company, which makes the bulk of its money from the 3,000-odd employers that pay for sponsored pages.
The head of Glassdoor’s international operations, Diarmuid Russell, told TheJournal.ie the site rewarded companies that encouraged transparency, like those which invited their workers to leave anonymous feedback on the platform.
Even for companies such as Amazon, which has earned a reputation as a ‘bruising workplace’, the reviews give potential employees an insight into what they are getting themselves in for.
“My impression of that company is that they’ve built a very specific and unique workplace culture that is going to work really, really, really well for some people and really badly for others,” Russell said.
So (with Glassdoor) the people who want to work in that kind of environment will be drawn there and the people who don’t will stay away, and that’s probably good for Amazon and for people looking for a job.”
Where the truth lies
Similar to other crowd-sourced review sites, like TripAdvisor, the main criticism levelled at Glassdoor has surrounded fake feedback.
With only an email address required to contribute to the site, the company’s filters and human moderators are all that stand in the way of spam from companies that try to lift their own ratings with fawning reports or trash their competitors.
But beyond the undisclosed methods used to weed out the “less than genuine reviews”, Russell said it was the way employees and job hunters engaged with the site that provided the best foil to any iffy content.
“What our users tell us is that typically they will read four to seven reviews before they form an opinion,” he said.
If you look at stuff across the spectrum, it’s fairly easy to actually sort out where the truth lies and typically speaking, both on the positive and the negative side, if people excessively rant or if people are overly gushing and full of praise, people tend to apply a pretty steep discount factor to that.”
Glassdoor will open its Dublin office in January and the company expects to have at least 30 staff based in Ireland by the end of 2016. The local headcount is due to reach 100 within three years.
It will be recruiting sales, marketing and some product-development staff to handle its operations in Europe, where it has already rolled out local sites for the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
“Really, what’s attractive about Dublin is that it is slightly cheaper (than London), but also the access to talent that you’ve got here because it has become this tech cluster where you have so many international companies coming,” Russell said.
Sure the real estate market is a little bit crazy looking for office space, but the people that we want to hire are all here living in Dublin, whether they’re Irish citizens, or French, or German, or Dutch.”
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Great idea, people in this country are afraid to give honest exit interviews for fear of ‘burning their bridges’.
The company I work for has it. It tends to receive reviews from the disappointed and disaffected. People who have gripes use it to vent. People who are happy with their lot are rarely motivated to send a review. As a result you get an overly negative perspective. Use with extreme caution!
Sounds like ratemyteacher from about 10 years ago. This has potential but I’ll expect a lot of venting on the site.
There is a lot of venting. But you use your judgement on what to take on, and what to ignore. Like TripAdvisor, just ignore things 100% positive or negative, most real folk will be somewhat balanced. The interview questions section is fantastic for preparation for big interviews, many big companies ask the same questions everywhere..
Fear of ‘burning their bridges’.
Sums up Ireland, it is so incestuous that people are afraid to rock the boat.
This is also why we have these useless civil war era political parties still in power
I don’t need that site. I can dish the dirt here on my boss.
He a dirty ridden scoundrel
A boll@ks.
P.s. I’m self employed !
Dishing the dirt on your employer in writing in public is never a good idea….
You sound like Francis Fitzgerald or some other meaningless politician
Add to the fact the nice corporation tax. C’mon like.
C’mon like what?
This should be interesting.
It is actually a good site. You get a lot of legit people posting about things like general work environment (which i think is the most important thing) and internal opportunities. It can give you a good insight if you’re interested in potentially joining a company.
As reliable as TripAdvisor. Enough said. Load of rubbish so.
It’s very useful. Gives good feedback of work practices and salaries and potential for advancement from employees and ex employees. Could help you decide if working for a particular company would fit with your expectations.
I recently visited a company in Spain. The boss got in the lift with his giant Labrador. He was apologetic and chatted with everyone. They have a crèche and a roof garden for employees to chill. If you are working late there are ready meals and snacks in the kitchen along with a beer and ice cream fridge. No one abuses this and the company is not Carlsberg !
Dunne’s Stores and the way they have treated staff in relation to zero hour contracts, might be fearful of this site? Things are going to get more interesting!
Glassdoor is the site that HR go to to fill out positive reviews of their own company….
“I wish Fine Gael would stop saying mean things about. I know I acted tough in the press but they really hurt my feelings and upset me”
Signed :
Alan Kelly.
I’m self employed so I can be very good to work for but I wonder how many workers at companies which use zero hour contracts will be allowed to use Glass Door? Oh if only there were the jobs in Ireland or could so many reviews contain the lines “you have no basic rights and most of the other staff have no respect for you but you do get an extra € 50 a week on top of your dole”
Can I have a job as a moderator? I don’t live in Dublin but I can remote log in.
Please :)
Generally you know the person who has left the scathing review. Recently someone spotted a not so nice review of a place a number of us worked. It was brutally honest. Not like the company liked to read it. But afterwards we were contacted to see if it was one of us who’d written it.
Interesting. Glassdoor themselves get a review score of 4.6 on the site:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Glassdoor-Reviews-E100431.htm
99% of reviews approve of the CEO. The only leader I know of with a higher approval rating is Kim Jong Un.
It’s not a launch, they’ve had reviews for irish companies/positions for ages!
In a recession it might become a tumbleweed?
have your say