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Comment by pierat | Hacker News Reader

I treat Glassdoor reviews like Amazon reviews.

I immediately go to the 1 and 2 stars, and read all the negative reviews. I then look for trends in those negatives.

If I see no real trend, and instead people being dumb, I ignore them. If I see distinct trends of faulty thing, or fails to perform, then I know to avoid.

I assume (well, rightfully so) that any 4's and 5's are gamified and or just outright fraudulent. Companies who run these review sections are directly complicit, and usually rely on these ratings to "make the sale" or otherwise hold mind share.

There's not much we can do here. Just hope we hit jackpot on the employer lottery.

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The flip side: There are always bad apples at any company. The negative reviews may be legit, but not relevant to the manager/program you'd be working under.

As someone who's worked at a 100k+ employees company, there were literally dozens of programs in the same building living largely separate/parallel existences. Unless the reviews called out a program/manager by name they'd be completely useless in gauging job satisfaction.

Too true, and the larger orgs definitely have that as a concern.

And some specific managers who would be better not leading people (aka fired) are a weird case where the in-person interview can kind of discern that. Basically, one has to learn what to ask and how to ask to suss out which team leads are good and which ones aren't. Then again, it's a definite problem where you are in an org can make or break you.

However, we have to separate "shitty manager" from "shitty organization forcing managers to enact shitty policies". And this is where I think Glassdoor 1 and 2 star reviews can show policy trends (versus bad manager trends).

And of course, you may get a company that avoids most of the reviews in scummy ways. I know that the company I worked for that got bought out had a clause they wanted us to sign that stated "no negative comments about us anywhere". What's funny is this is actually illegal under the NLRB. But to me this was a massive red flag to get the hell out (and I did).

Personally in my experience, regardless of the size of the organization (small family business to thousands of employee orgs) if management is toxic, it's because it's tacitly approved from higher ups.

Culture starts at the top.

Culture is preserved at the top. It starts at the bottom. The problem is too many leaders read an Adam Grant or Simon Sinek book and all of a sudden think they are the latest incarnation of the tech leadership buddha and impose their will on the team.

What questions should one ask to suss out the good team leads?

1. Efforts to conceal in an interview reveal potential toxic areas. NDA issues aside, this is more about concealing and making things look better than they actually are.

2. Ask "What do you like about working here?". If there's pushback or defensiveness, red flag.

3. Ask "If you were in my position, would you take this job?". Would they gladly take this job, or is there hesitation/defiance/pushback?

4. Ask "What does your organization know and believe about psychological safety?" - This is an institutional question about https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safety

5. Ask "What are your values and how do you hold people accountable to live them?" (Does the org follow their own guidance, or is it just for show?)

6. Ask "What happens to employees who make mistakes?" - is this a 1 and done? This also pairs with psychological safety.

7. Ask "What happens to employees when they challenge the status quo?" (As an engineer or similar lead technological role, you will be continually pushing tech. How does the company respond to that?)

8. And for you to ask yourself: "Is the interview conversational or scripted?"

9. Was the interview genuine happiness, or faked? Would the people you would work with actually happy what they're doing?

10. How do you feel after the interview? Is there something that felt off? Can you identify it?

I hope this comment comes across as helpful rather than rude: if you asked me a couple of those questions (especially back-to-back) during an interview, I would not hire you. It isn't that any of those are bad questions per se, but the volume and forwardness of them would be a red-flag that this is a person who likes to show up, make trouble, and not be held accountable for it. Maybe that's not your goal, but remember that in an interview you only have a few minutes to communicate where you're coming from.

As a counterpoint, if someone asks these questions in an interview of me, they'd still go to the "Had questions prepared" higher slice of rankings.

Prepared questions indicate you have initiative and do your homework. I'm hiring thinkers, not drones.

The only turn-off could be in the way they asked the questions and followed up -- aggressive? Not listening to my response closely? Not clarifying if I asked for more information?

Exactly. This isn't meant to be a Blade Runner Voight-Kampff rapid-fire interrogation.

An interview is supposed to be a bidirectional conversation to see if you fit with the manager/company and the company fits with you. Obviously, how you ask (and don't ask), and ask around these questions can really give an idea what to expect.

There's also major red flags for places that you probably never want to work at. For example, dismissive managers are a major problem. What are they going through on a day-to-day? They probably can't tell you, but you can ask around them.

Why are they interviewing? Is it a new position, or a replacement? Why did the replacement leave? I had one interview that the person leaving was also on the interview committee. Really nice gentleman. He was retiring, and wanted to move back with family across the US. And he was on the committee to help find a person and train them to be there. The job wasn't exactly what I was looking for and declined, but I greatly respected how they did that interview.

Again, I interview primarily for engineering roles. Maybe other non-engineering roles do things differently. But I like to try to get a snapshot what the company's like, their expectations, my expectations, and how my life is working there. Last thing I want to do is accept a position and find out they grossly misrepresented the position to get me in the door, and make it hard to interview/switch to get out.

On the other hand, as a hiring manager, I know this is someone who is team-focused and wants to be part of an organization that is similar rather than a blame-focused organization.

An organization that is aligned with the communications patterns outlined in those questions would answer those questions comfortably.

I'm trying not to take this as rude... But yeah. My failing, I guess?

I gave a list of types of questions I use to try to discern the manager and the company's perspective. Obviously these aren't to be utilized rapid-fire in a dismissive attitude. However, that's exactly how companies approach interviews. Why isn't it good for me to do the same that's being done to me?

> if you asked me a couple of those questions (especially back-to-back) during an interview, I would not hire you.

(The personal response) And there's no way I'd want to work with or for you with that kind of "you ask too many questions" attitude.

> It isn't that any of those are bad questions per se, but the volume and forwardness of them would be a red-flag that this is a person who likes to show up, make trouble, and not be held accountable for it.

I've also been in workplaces that fired after one fuck-up that was due to miscommunication, bad documentation, or other 3rd party factors. I'm not normally accustomed to making mistakes in my professional area, but they do happen. "How are failures and changes handles in your org?" is a massive key indicator of how this org maintains and grows, and I along with it.

And as an engineer, I get *paid* to ask questions, including those pointed ones that get to the root of a matter. And I apply those skills and abilities to interview processes as I would to any other process. To see a hiring manager dismiss this type of interactive discussion as "someone who makes trouble", is the very type of manager I recommend to be fired on my reviews.

> Maybe that's not your goal, but remember that in an interview you only have a few minutes to communicate where you're coming from.

And the implied contextural clues you typed here indicates that it's the interviewer's to ask the questions, and the candidate to shut up unless spoken to, except for a softball one-off question at the end.

Interviews are a 2 way street. You're interviewing me, and I'm ALSO interviewing you. My questions I ask that probe to a company culture and happiness of the interviewers is of utmost importance. I've turned down higher-paying higher-stress jobs precisely because people on the team balked at work-life balance questions.

Another company had a manager roll their eyes when I asked if they would work the position they were hiring for. Just what exactly did I dodge by discontinuing the interview?

One company blatantly stated that "full time ie expected to be 50 hours minimum" when I asked how maintenances were handled with scheduling. And they're a BIG vehicle company. 6 sigma, ISO 20000, yadda yadda. Absoluutely no life balance, and the interviewing manager made that known.

I've dodged a LOT of crap companies with these sorts of questions. Yours sounds like one as well, with your response.

No offense.

I’d ask similar questions as the parent poster, and I explicitly wouldn’t want to work somewhere where asking these questions was a red flag.

So, it can actually still be a useful candidate side filter. If you don’t hire me because I asked these questions, that’s good for me because I don’t want to work for you (not in an accusatory manner, just we probably don’t have compatible workplace expectations).

> 4. Ask "What does your organization know and believe about psychological safety?" - This is an institutional question about https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safety

That's not a good question because it assumes the other person if familiar with the jargon term "psychological safety," which seems pretty new. That's not reasonable because that recent HBR article you posted indicates that many people don't know what that term means.

Also "psychological safety" could be easily misinterpreted in today's political environment as something related a demand for an (ideologically) "safe space."

After skimming that article, it would probably be better to ask something along the lines of "is it OK to make mistakes in this organization and learn from them?"

I would actually want to use "psychological safety" to see if my manager is the kind of person who, when they see a word they don't know, instead of asking they make a shit assumption and then react negatively to their own projection of the situation.

I would agree with you if it was a more esoteric sounding word that doesn't have some kind of intuitive interpretation. Physiological safety doesn't sound like something that has a concrete definition at all, and if asked, I'd probably either ask what the person means by it, or come up with my own definition that's otherwise equally valid. Though in the context of an interview, probably best to ask what they mean.

What will #8 tell you? as someone that is forced to do scripted interviews at current job...

And if it is scripted, so what? That might mean every candidate gets a somewhat consistent experience, instead of whatever off-the-cuff crap my not-as-smart-as-she-thinks-she-is interviewer pulls out of her butt. Because we've all known that person on the interview team that has their bullshit manhole cover question because "I think to see how they think".

Yeah. 8 is just a silly question. First off you can often just tell if it's scripted. Secondly if it is scripted it's generally just because HR is more mature and is trying to be more fair in the hiring processes; this is a good practice for diversity.

Organizations that aren't scripted just haven't gotten there yet.

It's not good practice for diversity. While it might help some with racial, ethnic or gender diversity, it discriminates heavily against neurodiverse people who often do not fit into little boxes a scripted interview is designed to check off.

have recently been in an interview were the scriptedness feeling crept in after the first few up-beat intro questions were done. didn't felt professional at all to see them working a questionaire with me.

It tells you the company values process over efficacy. Interviewing, like practically any complex task is dynamic in nature. Following down a line of conversation with a candidate provides genuine insight into the individual and cannot be done mechanically.

I might hesitate in answering #3 because it's such a weird question. I don't know your tolerance for common things in young companies like frequently changing priorities. I don't know your financial situation (are you desperate for a job, or are you holding out for a perfect fit?).

Answering "no" could easily land me in hot water, regardless of my reasons, and especially if I don't explain them very clearly and objectively. Answering "yes" doesn't tell you anything; after all, I already work here and might have drunk the company kool-aide.

It just seems like you're looking for a reason to not work here, instead of looking for reasons to be excited about working here. Walking in the door with a negative attitude is a good way to poison a team's working environment. You are, in effect, the very toxic thing you are trying to reveal.

Maybe it's just cultural differences, but I cannot imagine a reason to ask that question of anyone other than someone who I trust and know well.

Great questions, as well as the review strategy in your OP.

It's still a huge red flag against the company that one team can be toxic and another great.

i mean, in a sufficiently large organization, this is essentially unavoidable

It depends on what is driving the dissatisfaction. If it is something like how the company handles promotions and raises, than it doesn’t matter which department is providing the review.

This is very true. I've worked in an organization where most people on most of the other teams would negatively rate the company, but I was fortunate to have a great boss. So I look back on my time there as positive, although I recognize that most other people had a very different experience of that company.

I don't think it's too difficult to infer that siloed irrelevance etc may be the case, doesn't seem like much of a flipside to critically studying negative reviews

My company has had legitimate 1-2 star reviews removed. I know this because one in particular struck a chord with me, and a month later it was gone. At the same time I saw that many other lower scored reviews were gone.

Glassdoor is simply compromised by money and can't be trusted whatsoever.

Is it possible for a company like glassdoor to not eventually be compromised?

No. Cloud compute and egress is expensive.

Perhaps if they charged job seekers for access instead of job posters. Alternatively, run it as a non profit like Wikipedia and solicit donations.

I’ve had two employers that are impossible to leave 1 star reviews for. Doesn’t matter how mundane and kind the review is, it never makes it past moderation.

If only a third-party archived/screenshotted Glassdoor reviews to preserve them. Then we could see the pattern of deletions by date/location/dept/position/timing of layoffs/stock price/etc. Also, someone could construct a RottenTomatoes-type aggregate of RealGlassdoor vs PurgedGlassdoor (vs Blind) metascore over time. To see when things were being manipulated.

[UPDATE: hedora already said archive.org does this earlier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36084679]

> I treat Glassdoor reviews like Amazon reviews.

This is my approach as well. Probably my favorite moment was reading a review for my own company. It was very recent and mentioned that "management had stupid delusions of being acquired by company X." That review was posted literally days before the acquisition was publicly announced.

If they were a public company then 100% that review should have been removed. That's leaking insider information. Leaking insider information in and of itself is a violation of insider trading laws.

The catch there was that it was our stated goal, but the person leaving that review wouldn't have known about the imminent acquisition, which is what made it all the more ironic.

If I want to leave a bad review, I always do exactly the opposite. Both for Glassdoor or Amazon reviews. Always give five stars, start with innocent paragraph and leave the full details and scathing review in the second paragraph. It helps reaching the target audience...

In a lot of platforms less than good reviews are removed. Some people post 4 or 5 star reviews that sound vaguely positive, but in the text itself one can clearly read a bad opinion. I do not know how effective this is versus a bad review, but the ones that survive are often gems.

The reality most (all) companies exist for the benefit of well the company. And all the power plays, motivations, passive aggressiveness, politics, misaligned manager motivations, bureaucracy are to be expected (sadly). Yes you could go much smaller to reduce process but you are taking that risk or loosing out on reward (and as I get older I am realizing how much I've been under appreciating peace of mind). I used to scoff at a friend when he suggested this - but his strategy of choosing a company based on who he knew and who he could work with has been looking amazing lately!

More like Yelp. There is no evidence Amazon commissions or condones fake reviews (apart from being wilfully negligent in policing them), whereas review extortion is a core part of both Yelp and Glassdoor's business model ("nice business you've got there, shame if bad reviews happened to it, but if you buy an advertising package, we will push them down so low they don't matter")

I like 3 and 4 stars reviews, too, since there's the sense people are making a calculated balancing attempt to perhaps be fair. If you want to tarnish the average give it a 1, a 2 if you want to be read, whereas a 5 will tarnish only you as an HR person.

I think the lesson here is to ignore the overall average and to read subjective stuff and look for patterns.

What's fascinating about reading Amazon 1-star reviews for anything that's even slightly technically complicated is seeing people who clearly have no idea what they're doing, and have broken the thing themselves when trying to install it or use it. Or similar.

I prefer the ones where people have ordered the wrong size/color, to wit: "I meant to order a black one but I ordered a white one by mistake."

Agreed.

Qualitative trends are the interesting thing, not the quantitative result.

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