Everything about the job sounds great...except the Glassdoor reviews

June 18, 2018 5:25 PM

I’ve been really excited about a possible new job opportunity I interviewed for, but the company’s Glassdoor reviews are giving me serious pause. How to proceed from here?

I’m in the running for a job that has sounded fantastic up until now. Without going into extensive detail, here are the main pros:

• The job is in a specialized area of my field that I’ve been hoping to work in for years. It’s a somewhat niche area, so job openings are few and far between.
• The work itself seems interesting and varied. It’s very likely I'd be able to take on more responsibility and develop important skills that my current job doesn’t provide opportunities in.
• A trusted professional contact (who has worked with both myself and my potential new manager) has told me that I would really enjoy working with the person who would be my manager. This matches my impression from the interview process—it feels like the would-be manager and I are on the same page and I think our personalities would be a good fit. It was easy to imagine working together. I also talked briefly with a couple other staff in the department I'd be in and got good vibes from them too.
• The company's office is located in a city I love with several close friends nearby (something lacking in my current location).

The list of pros is made all the more attractive by the fact that I'm ready to leave my current job. I'm bored more days than not and feel like I've reached the limit of what I'm going to learn. My boss is very nice, but lacking in the management skills I've experienced with other supervisors.

And now for the major con: The company's reviews on Glassdoor are pretty terrible. Multiple reviewers refer to sexual harassment (with no help from HR), bullying, and power struggles. The words "toxic" and "dysfunctional" also come up several times. The vast majority of these reviews are well written, and often include multiple paragraphs. Understandably, the reviewers don't associate themselves with a specific department or job title, so it's hard to tell if these issues exist throughout the organization, or only in certain departments. (There are hundreds of employees distributed across several departments). It might be worth mentioning that my potential manager-to-be (and I believe almost the entire department) are of the same gender as myself. I realize that same sex/gender sexual harassment exists, but statistically, it seems like the most frequent instances involve men harassing women.

I'm at a loss for how to think about this job now, and whether I should accept it if offered. The Glassdoor reviews make me want to stay far away, but then I worry it could be years before an opportunity in this section of my field comes up again. I'm fairly certain there won't be any more interviews at this point in the process. Even if there were, I feel like asking about the reviews could start things off on a bad foot if I did end up in the job.

How should I proceed if they make an offer? Is it even worth considering at all given the preponderance of reviews with recurring negative themes?

posted by Key Lime to Work & Money (8 answers total)

If I were you, I would try to email or get together with some of your contacts on the department or team you would be joining, and tell them that you are thinking about coming to work there and that you would really like to find out more about what the culture is like. Then ask them some questions related to the reviews, to see whether you can understand more about what's going on. I don't think people would in general consider asking about that to reflect poorly on you, although I wouldn't bring it up directly with a recruiter.

I've been in a situation similar to this before. When I joined my current company, it had a number of negative Glassdoor reviews about mismanagement and poor leadership. I talked to some people who worked there about it, and I found out that there had just recently been a big company-wide project that more or less failed and resulted in a lot of people being laid off. I felt more like I knew where things stood after that, and decided to work there anyway.
posted by value of information at 5:33 PM on June 18, 2018

I interviewed at a company with horrible Glassdoor reviews. The hiring manager proactively addressed the negative reviews on Glassdoor and explained how the issues had been addressed by the company and which issues still needed work. If the no one at the company where you're interviewing addresses the issues on Glassdoor, I would look at it as a huge red flag. At the very least I think it's fair for you to bring up during the interview.
posted by parakeetdog at 6:14 PM on June 18, 2018 [11 favorites]

What does your "trusted professional contact" have to say about this? Have you asked?

If I were you, I would wait and see if I am offered the job. If I were, I would mention my concern about the negative reviews. I understand that you're afraid of being penalized, but any reasonable manager would understand why reviews like that would give you pause. Ideally, you'd be able to speak with more than one person at the company about the atmosphere.

I would want to hear some VERY convincing reasons that the problems discussed in those reviews have been solved. Even if the reviews all have to do with a different department than you'd be working in, a toxic work environment is sort of like a virus and it's very apt to spread if unchecked. And honestly, even if my own department were sexual-harassment-free, I'd not be ok knowingly taking a job with a company where that was rampant, even if it didn't directly affect me.
posted by nirblegee at 6:24 PM on June 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

The company I work for has a number of negative Glassdoor reviews (though of a much different stripe than yours) and the folks doing the hiring have specifically mentioned the good conversations that have resulted when candidates bring up the Glassdoor reviews.

Definitely ask about them, ask what they've done so far to address the problems, and ask what changes have been made so this stuff doesn't repeat in the future. If the answers aren't good ones, hard pass.
posted by phunniemee at 7:09 PM on June 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

This is absolutely the sort of thing you can bring up with the manager you will be working with if you are offered the job. In a polite I was being thorough and did my research to determine if this place would be a good culture fit and I found these reviews, does this match your experience kind of way. Another good question would be to ask after what the companies sexual harassment policy is and how incidents are generally handled. If they are a company employing hundreds of people and do t at least have a written HR policy they can cut and paste back to you that'll be a real red flag. Interviews are a two way street, it's a business proposition to decide if you want to work together you can and should ask them questions too. Maybe also ask about family medical leave, maternity/paternity leave and other work-life balance culture questions while you are at it. Bro-y places tend to not be so great about that sort of thing and that can be a pointer to whether these reviews are accurate.
posted by edbles at 8:39 PM on June 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

If hr is competent they know about the Glassdoor reviews. Ask them and ask them to help you dillegence those specific issues.
posted by JPD at 2:24 AM on June 19, 2018

It sounds like you've had enough of your current job regardless so even if it doesn't work out with the new place then you're no worse of. And if it's in an area you want and with growth potential then could make a good stepping stone. Glassdoor reviews are a bit dubious as a few bad experiences could just be a vocal minority, plus a lot of companies ask their employees to help with recruitment by leaving good reviews.
posted by JonB at 10:02 AM on June 19, 2018

Definitely continue the hiring process and be transparent about your concerns. The HR department and your hiring manager should both be able to address the Glassdoor topics. See if the company will let you go to lunch with a worker bee, not someone in management, to talk about corporate culture.
posted by nkknkk at 2:20 PM on June 19, 2018