glassdoor

We spend a lot of time here at Glassdoor thinking about transparency – how do we use it to help everyone make better career decisions? We’ve been working on solving that fundamental question for awhile now, and to be honest - before we launched we weren’t really sure how our hard work would be received. Now that we’ve launched however, things have changed – we’re no longer just making “good guesses” – we’re fortunate to have an engaged community that will tell us what we’re doing well, and in some cases not so well. Thankfully the feedback from users has been overwhelmingly positive, but in the spirit of practicing what we preach we wanted to share some of the feedback we’ve received from members of the Glassdoor community – the good, the bad and the ugly. So here it is for all to see:

• (+) Easy of use

  Many users have written in to let us know that the site is well-designed and easy to use. That’s great feedback, especially when I know we can make it even better (and now that we have a full-time designer you’ll begin to see a difference). In the end, I think this is a real point of differentiation for us – we have salaries for a job at a company, not just a job – and when compared to other services I would have to agree that it’s easier to find the information that matters most to you.

• (-) Need location-based search or filtering

  Of all our critical feedback, this is the clearly the issue that gets the most attention (1-3 emails a day). And I have to admit it’s well-deserved. Thankfully we’re already working on designs for allowing you to search for salaries and company reviews by city. It gets a lot more complicated when you throw in our international cities because we need to consider other currencies but that just makes it harder not impossible. We’ll get there soon.

• (+) Quality of the content (balanced, thoughtful, constructive)

  I remember when we launched there were quite a few naysayers who thought we would be another venting site for disgruntled employees. Well, we proved them wrong. In fact, we have more positive reviews than we have negative (we’ll dig deeper on that in later blog post). Part of the reason we’re able to achieve such high standards is because our “give-to-get” model ensures a more balanced cross-section of all employees, but more importantly we review every post before it goes live on the site to ensure it meets our Community Guidelines and quality standards.

• (-) Not enough international content

  Our international launch generated some serious buzz and it more than validated our suspicion that the need for workplace transparency would know no borders, but it still takes time to get the “give-to-get” model going. For the US, we launched with a solid foundation of employee generated content – but for all our international countries it was harder to tell users to post content of their own if there was nothing to see for their country. With time this issue takes care of itself, and it already has for many of our top countries, but it will require some time to get the word out for our other countries.

• (+) Great customer care

  Many of our users have written in with an issue or question, and are often surprised when they get a personal email response (let alone from our CEO or VP). Well, we do our best to respond to every email and if it’s an issue we can fix – we promise to do our best. In many cases, such as the search issue above, we’re not just responding to the issue but letting you know that the solution is already in the works (which always helps!).

• (-) Not anonymous enough

  A few users have said that our service is not anonymous enough for their situation – for example, let’s say they’re the only one with that job title in their office. Well, we want to remind everyone that there are ways to post your salary or review without risking your anonymity. For posting a salary, you don’t even need to specify your company (which means nobody will know it’s you) and for reviews you don’t even need to tell us your location or job title (that’s pretty anonymous). We’re looking for other ways to allow everyone to participate and already have a few ideas, so stay tuned.

• (+) Always getting better

  This is some of the best feedback to receive. First and foremost, it’s always great to see that our users love the concept behind Glassdoor. Many write in wishing that we were around when they were looking for their last job, but even more write in excited about how the site just keeps getting better. It’s two things – the more content we have the better the experience, but we also have a team of all-stars that are able to continue releasing new features every month. We plan to continue keeping with that tempo of new features, there’s a lot more to come!

I hope that sheds a little light on what we’re thinking about at Glassdoor. Like I said, we’re fortunate to have such an engaged community and we want to keep it that way – so expect more of these in the future. We’re listening to all of your feedback, so please keep it coming!

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Rumors are swirling around Yahoo! - is it going to be an AOL merger or a Microsoft buyout? It’s not surprising – rumors and speculation have become a favorite past-time when it comes to Yahoo! Everyone loves to pile on, but as a former Yahoo! employee – it’s getting harder and harder to watch.

	Yahoo! Reviews
	Overall Rating - 3.4
	CEO Approval Rating (Jerry Yang) -
	34% Approve (42% Disapprove)
	AOL Reviews
	Overall Rating - 2.8
	CEO Approval Rating (Randy Falco) -
	14% Approve (65% Disapprove)
	Microsoft
	Overall Rating - 3.7
	CEO Approval Rating (Steve Ballmer) -
	45% Approve (30% Disapprove)

I practically bled purple and yellow when I joined Yahoo!, but in the years that followed you could almost see the company lose it’s “mojo” (right along with their most talented employees). And as the race out of those purple and yellow doors began, I remember a conversation with one of my career mentors in which he said, “we’re going to become the next AOL, so get out while Yahoo! still means something.”

In the end it was great advice – I took it earlier this year and left shortly after Microsoft had given my Yahoo! stock a well-timed bump. But I didn’t think we’d still be talking about all this more than 6 months later. Now I don’t know what to believe – will my mentor’s prediction come true (Yahoo! and AOL become one in the same) or will Microsoft come in again (and give my friends there well-time bump before they leave).

So I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone has been saying on Glassdoor. What I found was surprising…in many ways Yahoo! and AOL are already one in the same. Just take a look below at a few of the review snippits from Yahoo! and AOL employees. Let’s see if you can guess which company the employee is talking about: (answers at the bottom of this post).

Review #1

Clear out the dead weight in sr management, focus on core businesses, and invest heavily in them. Allow business owners to take risks where appropriate and be willing to accept failure as part of the business.”

Review #2

When the rumors start flying, and depending on if your division is likely to be affected, employee morale basically plummets and it seems hardly any work gets done.”

Review #3

There is lots of over-strategizing going on. Decisions are often revisited over and over again. Senior management is often afraid to make difficult decisions. As a result of these factors, teams and projects spend a lot of time spinning in circles, rather than executing and moving forward.”

If you want change at Yahoo!, you’ll see that selling out to Microsoft is not looking so bad anymore. And when 28% of the AOL reviews already mention the word “layoffs”, that can’t be a good sign (though it may be quite prophetic).

I’m not saying Microsoft is perfect, but it sure seems like the better of the two options to me. You’ll get your stock bump, you can leave (either by choice or with layoff), and life will go on. Yes it will be sad, but it will be better than living through another several months of uncertainty and speculation.

Answers: (1) Yahoo! Product Manager (2) AOL Principal Software Engineer (3) Yahoo! Director

Want more? See all the company reviews for Yahoo!, AOL, or Microsoft on Glassdoor.com

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It goes without saying that there is a lot riding on the upcoming presidential election, so for a little while longer, there will be no escaping the endless barrage of politics. But what about escaping politics of a different kind, the kind that are not tied to the election cycle but affect you just the same? I’m talking about “office politics”, and if you have ever worked for a company that suffers from it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We decided to uncover the companies on Glassdoor.com that seem to be suffering the most from office politics. We searched more than 100,000 company reviews and counted the number of times employees used the words “politics” or “political” when describing their workplace, and then sorted by the companies where those words appeared the most. So we present to you the top 5 companies that received the most mentions of the “P” words.

5 Worst Companies for Office Politics

At the top of the list is Salesforce, with 29% of Salesforce reviews contain the ‘P’ word compared to the average of 6.5%. That means Salesforce employees are 4.5 times more likely to use the word “Politics” when describing their company than employees at other companies.  So if you don’t like office politics, you would be wise to do your homework by researching company reviews and salaries, as well as asking good questions during your interview before joining any of the aforementioned companies. 

Since Salesorce made the top of the list, are you curious to know what’s going on over there?  Well, it seems that a common complaint is that internal politics factor too much into the promotion process. Here are a few review excerpts from salesforce employees:

Advancement really depends on political postering and dealing with that takes away from the fun of the actual work.  - Senior Business Analyst in San Francisco

Internal promotion has become political and long-winded. - Sales in San Francisco

Politics play a huge role in your career path. If your not part of the “club” then your path is going to be a long one, even with success. - AE in San Francisco

A very young, aggressive, smart and energized workforce has its downside: intense politics. If you are not in the right place or plugged in with the right crowd, it’s hard to get ahead - Senior Program Manager in San Francisco

Most promotions are based on political savvy instead of your contribution to the company.  - Manager, Sales Strategy in San Francisco

Clearly the above employees find the politics at salesforce a downside of working there, but different strokes for different folks.  Some people (political people) thrive in a political environment.  As one salesforce employee puts it: 

If you love a political workplace, then Salesforce.com is for you

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We’ve been very busy at Glassdoor. Between adding new features, updating our CEO watch list, and reaching a Glassdoor milestone of 100k approved reviews and salaries – we have finally selected our “Review of the Month” winner for September. In case you aren’t familiar, each month we spotlight one Glassdoor employee review and award that user $500 (in this economy everyone could use the extra cash). This month’s winner is a former Product Manager at Amazon.com.

Amazon.com Office in Seattle

Balanced, thorough, and honest. That’s the best way to describe this month’s winning review. Though not the most positive, this Amazon.com review almost feels like advice from one friend to another. That’s what the Glassdoor community is all about. Take a look and we think you’ll agree why this review stands out:

The culture has a sense of fun to it but it masks disrespect for the people working for management. There is a clear assumption that management knows best in every way, and so they have to watch over every detail to ensure that the dumb workers do not screw something up. This will just suck your soul - there is no presumption that you know what you are doing because you earned the job there.”

And, for those of you considering a career at Amazon, here’s your warning:

Within the company, the implications of this micromanagement attitude are well known - the company consistently misses goals for retention of its best performing employees and I believe that is because smart and able people do not like having no freedom to make decisions or priorities and do not like being treated like they do not know what they are doing.”

But this review was not all negative, there are also several positives to highlight from this review:

Many times we made decisions that were bad for the company short-term but better for the customer. Great to be guided by what’s good for the customer.”

Strong sense of innovation - they try to do things in a new way and think big and ambitiously. You will have the opportunity to build interesting products and features.”

And as you might expect from a winning review, there is also some thoughtful and actionable advice to management:

Think about a succession planning - Jeff has such iron grip on the company that it will be lost without him. Encourage some bottom-up development and decision-making: Start a new group and isolate it from the old-school management so they can’t interfere.”

This Glassdoor user will receive $500 for taking the time to offer a thoughtful and balanced look at life inside Amazon.com. You could be our next winner, so keep those reviews coming!

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It’s been awhile since we’ve done a product update (we’ve been caught up blogging about some of the economic news), but this week we pushed out a few product updates and I wanted to take this opportunity to give everyone the latest from the team.



About a week ago we achieved a major Glassdoor milestone – we crossed the 100,000 mark for total approved reviews and salaries. That’s a BIG number to hit in just over 100 days since launch – and we have users in over 90 countries to thank for this success. It’s become more and more obvious that the need for transparency in the workplace knows no boundaries, so we will continue working hard for you.

Thankfully with our “give-to-get” model, it should get easier and easier. It may not be obvious, but this big number is just the beginning. With our “give-to-get” model, the more we have to offer new users, the more likely they are to post their own review or salary (and join our community). And so it goes – it’s a model that supports itself – so thanks everyone for helping us get that ball rolling.

But that’s not the only thing that’s getting better. We continue to listen to your feedback, and this week we pushed out several new features that are worth noting. The most obvious of which is a new home page to help you find the most relevant reviews and salaries, but we also updated My Account to allow you to edit/remove your previous posts, and we’ve added the ever important “remember me” feature to our login page for those of you that keep forgetting your username or password.

We also began laying the groundwork for a few other major improvements to search – so there’s lots more to come, hopefully we can get you to check back with us in the weeks and months ahead as we roll out these new features. And please keep sending your feedback – we’re listening.

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So the economy is tanking and there’s no shortage of bad news out there, but for today we thought we’d take a break from talking about financial services to talk about a local high-tech favorite – eBay. 

Yesterday, John Donahoe, the new CEO of eBay, announced he would be “streamlining” – otherwise known as laying off 10% of their workforce and letting go of several hundred temporary positions (1,600 jobs in total). Layoffs by themselves are not surprising in this economy, but if you’ve been reading any of the eBay reviews from the last month you’d know that that employees themselves will be looking for John himself to be included in this round of cuts.

	Company	CEO	Approval Rating
	Motorola	Greg Brown	10.6%
	Rain Bird	Anthony LaFetra	11.4%
	AOL	Randy Falco	13.4%
	EDS	Ron Rittenmeyer	13.5%
	Computer Sciences	Mike Laphen	19.3%
	Wal-Mart	H. Lee Scott Jr.	23.5%
	eBay	John Donahoe	25.2%
	Nortel Networks	Mike S. Zafirovski	25.5%
	UBS	Marcel Rohner	27.0%
	Sun Microsystems	Jonathan Schwartz	28.9%

With a dismal 25.2% CEO approval rating (among the 10 worst with 50 or more reviews), employees haven’t been holding back. Whether its managements need for yet another re-org, change upon change that shows a lack of understanding and appreciation for the eBay ecosystem, or concerns about management killing the “cash cow” or “golden goose” (take your pick) – eBay employees have been especially active on Glassdoor lately.

eBay is pure chaos every day. Upper management is constantly changing which means regular re-orgs. We’re a horizontal org, then a vertical one, and back and forth. We work in centralized teams, then six months later we’re decentralized. Employees don’t feel confident that the initiative they’re working on today will be around next month or even next week.” — Program Manager in San Jose

Crazy hours doing crazy things that are alienating everyone - employees, sellers, buyers, shareholders, analysts. Anyone with a stake in eBay is wondering what the hell is going on, or we would wonder if we weren’t so exhausted. We do things, people get upset, we change them, and upper management keeps asking us to make the same mistakes.” — Project Manager in San Jose

Donahoe has made eBay a miserable debacle and it’s getting worse every day…I never thought I would say this, but I miss Meg! Come back Meg!!!!!” — Software Engineer in San Jose

I guess it’s not surprising that this last employee is looking for Meg to return, her approval rating was 75% when she stepped down (3x that of John’s).

There are definitely strong feelings here, so let’s look for a positive - the employees are passionate (and so he has that going for him – which is nice!). Let’s hope that Jon can turn that passion into something positive. Our “hitlist” of the CEOs with the lowest Glassdoor approval ratings has already predicted the departures of CEOs at WaMu, AMD, and Alcatel-Lucent – you have to wonder who will be next? After all, employees know best.

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Apple Headquarters

Apple recently took a bruising in the blogosphere over its policy of requiring all iPhone developers to agree to a strict NDA (non-disclosure agreement).  Developers were forbidden from talking about their development of iPhone applications and even from saying publicly that their application had been rejected from the iPhone App Store.

Now, we developers (I’m a Lead Web Developer at Glassdoor) , are fairly gregarious. We love to brag, show off our code, critique other developers’ code, and generally show our mad skillz.  Apple’s iPhone NDA effectively shut iPhone developers off from their community, and they weren’t happy.  So Apple developers blogged -  They blogged a lot.  One developer even created the web site #@*% NDA.com (the real URL doesn’t use grawlixes — not the kind of homage you want from your developers).

The culture of secrecy at Apple is highly apparent when you read the 250 Apple Reviews contributed by Apple Employees on Glassdoor.  Apple employees are 15 times more likely to use the word “secrecy” or “secret” when describing their company compared to employees at other companies. 15.9% of the Apple Reviews use these words compared to just 1% at other companies.  Here are some examples:

Secrecy hurts the company - employees are given limited information about important company news and events.”  — Concierge in New York, NY

The secrecy is beyond fastidious and is in fact insultingly petty and political, and often is an impediment to actually getting one’s work done.” — Senior Software Engineer in Cupertino, CA

While secrecy is beneficial during development, and helps make a big splash on introduction of a product - the paranoia still runs deep after the product has shipped. The default answer to any question is “say nothing publicly”, and this philosophy is driven out of fear, even for purely technical discussions.” — Lead Software Engineer in Cupertino, CA

There is this overall ’secrecy’ feel that is weird - and I think it permeates many many aspects of the company from engineering to marketing to sales - so you are often wondering if you are supposed to know something and not talk about it, etc. and it makes for a sometimes uncomfortable environment.” — Sales Associate in Cupertino, CA

Secrecy is one thing; colleagues and departments who are afraid to communicate are quite another, and the atmosphere at Apple fosters the latter. It hurts the company.” — Consulting Services Engineer in Cupertino, CA

In all fairness, I’m an Apple fanatic.  I love Apple design, I love the natural feel of Apple’s user interface, and I cringe when I have to use Windows.  I was so unhappy about the way Apple was treating its developers that last week I sent an email to Steve Jobs.  I told him that this wasn’t the kind of behavior I expected from Apple, and I hoped he would fix it.  An hour later, he wrote back, telling me that this was being blown up by the bloggers. I responded:

Me:  “I appreciate the response, but please, PLEASE stay the same company we love and trust.”

Within a minute Steve Jobs replied:

Steve Jobs:  “Of course we will.  This whole thing has been really blown out of proportion by a few small developers.”

A few days later, Apple finally lifted the NDA, making the announcement in a terse note on their developer site. The formatting was identical to the open letters that Steve Jobs sends on occasion, like his famous “Thoughts on Music”, and it’s a sure bet that Steve had a direct hand in the composition of the note.  The note dryly ends by thanking everyone for their “constructive feedback on this matter.”  And in the blogosphere, there was much rejoicing.

Perhaps Apple is starting to realize that it has become too zealous in its protection of its innovations.  I hope that they’ll take their employee’s comments seriously, and also treat developers more like partners than potential leaks.  I know I’ll be watching the company reviews on Glassdoor.com to see how things are going, and I’ll be rooting for Apple.

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With everything that’s happening in the world of financial services, it’s becoming hard for us at Glassdoor to sit on the sidelines. So after reading Sunday’s New York Times article chronicling the crisis at AIG, I thought I’d take a look at what the AIG employees have been saying on Glassdoor.

It wasn’t hard for me to find a few AIG reviews that just got it – maybe we should all be listening to employees on the inside? Take this one.

New Direction is needed badly - Business Analyst, Wilmington, DE
“Management does poor job of communicating with employees. There does not seem to be much transparency between departments. Management tends to think things are better than they actually are. For instance, they have been in denial awhile now about exposure to sub-prime mortgages.”

Now that’s an analyst that saw the writing on the wall. And s/he wasn’t the only one to recognize communication as an issue for AIG, and most feel that AIG’s size is to blame. For example:

“Recently, the stock value has been killing us. Also, the size can be overwhelming at times. Communication is a challenge because of this. As a leader in the insurance industry, AIG is always in the spotlight. This is definitely a double edged sword. Things are easily blown out of proportion and misunderstood by the outside world…and then AIG has to react and waste money and resources on the wrong things at times, just to appease the public eye.” (8/8/08)

This review even went so far as to call AIG a “1,000 pound gorilla that, until recently, made money in spite of itself.” (7/9/08) and credited its size with change that comes at a “pre-global warming glacial pace.” Another review even went so far as to say “It’s too large. It’s so large it’s like working for a large branch of government.” (7/22/08) And that was before the bailout announcement - I wonder what it feels like now?

Even with all this, the reviews since the bailout have been fairly balanced. Most importantly, most of the reviews are offering some fairly consistent advice to senior management – improve communication and find ways to retain top talent.

So let’s see what we can do Mr. Liddy. Your predecessor (CEO Robert Willumstad) had a disappointing 23% Glassdoor CEO approval rating before being ousted on September 18th. With all this great advice from your employees, maybe you’ll be able to do a bit better.

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“What happens to a company if somebody takes a boss away? I will answer your question with a question. It’s like what happens to a chicken when you take its head away. It dies unless you find a new head. I need to find which one of these people has the skills to be a chicken head,” - Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin

With CEO approval ratings of 5 percent and 56 percent respectively, perhaps CEOs Steve Odland (Office Depot) and Ron Sargent (Staples) would be wise to heed the wisdom of the dysfunctional but loveable regional manager of fictitious office supply business Dunder Mifflin.

Michael Scott (Dunder Miffllin Regional Manager), Ron Sargent (Staples CEO), Steve Odland (Office Depot CEO)

There’s a saying that sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. In order to maintain the integrity of our data, we carefully examine each and every company review that comes into Glassdoor and, well, we couldn’t agree more (you’ve already seen the salaries!). So, after scores of reviews from Office Depot, where employees give CEO Steve Odland a measly 5 percent approval rating (84% disapprove); and Staples whose CEO Ron Sargent is holding steady with a 56% approval rating (17% disapprove), something started to dawn on us. Were these reviews from…Dunder Mifflin?

We all know there’s speculation out there that maybe the popular TV show The Office, which satires American office life, is modeled after one of the office giants. We are huge fans, so in anticipation of the fifth season premier we thought we’d share with you just how close fact can mirror fiction.

See if you find these real employee reviews from Glassdoor reminiscent of some of the more eccentric characters from The Office.

FICTION	FACT
	Staples, Inventory Manager in North Haven, CT “I’d rather…” “I’d rather fly a cargo plane full of rubber dog sh*t out of Hong Kong then stay working at Staples.”
	Office Depot, Lead Engineer in Delray Beach, FL “Keep on looking…” “It doesn’t hurt to say thank you from time to time. With the work environment as poor as it is, being gracious for the extra time and effort employees put in, a thank you would at least help ease some of the anxiety and poor morale.”
	Office Depot, Account Manager in Indianapolis, IN “I love my job on a day to day basis.” “Right now things are not good…. I am told by those who have been around much longer that the pendulum swings both ways and now it is WAY to the bad. Morale is very bad and I am sick of hearing everyone crab…”
	Office Depot, Project Manager, Delray Beach, FL “Leadership needs to grow a set or leave.” “Ineffective senior management - same stuff over and over and over and over. It’s like Groundhog Day at OD!!”
	Office Depot, Account Manager II in Philadelphia, PA “FLEXIBILITY, MAKING MONEY, TERRIBLE BENEFITS!! OVERALL GOOD PLACE TO WORK” “I hate that we pay so much for our benefits and the only time that is helpful is if I break a leg or slip into a coma.”
	Office Depot, Senior Manager in Delray Beach, FL “Morale sucks!” “The company leadership has no clue right now how to lead the company forward. And the board of directors is stale and also part of the problem.”
	Staples, HR Framingham, MA “Staples is the land of opportunity! For its associates, its customers and its investors!” “Staples is a place of integrity, with a leadership team of highly ethical business leaders. Treatment to the customers is held to that standard as well. There is a pride that is apparent for those of us who work at Staples.”
	Office Depot, Sales Associate in Wichita, KS “We need to get back to the basic principles.” “The company needs to get back to its roots on creating a productive and happy environment for its employees. The company used to have a slogan written on the walls of every store: ‘Our customers mean everything, without them nothing else matters’. Back then the leadership understood that happy customers are created with happy employees. The principles back then were simple and there was no confusion.”

So, whaddya think? Guess there’s a little Dunder Mifflin in every workplace. Find out more about prospective employers and share your own experience by posting an anonymous review of your own at Glassdoor.com.

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As huge fans of NBC’s The Office, we’re anxiously awaiting this season’s premiere. Call us geeks but we thought it might be fun to see what the self-proclaimed “World’s Best Boss” and the rest of his fictional Scranton-based team would earn if Dunder Mifflin existed in the real world.

Here’s how they’d stack up according to real salaries posted on Glassdoor for similar job titles at Dunder Mifflin-like companies. Take a look:

salaries for Dunder Mifflin

It gets pretty interesting once salary transparency gets thrown into the mix. So, what do you think your “office” salary chart would look like? Find out by posting an anonymous salary and review for your company at Glassdoor.com.

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