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Comment by g_p | Hacker News Reader

It amazes me more people don't see this. Virgin in the UK looked into the data and found a bad candidate experience was significantly impacting their bottom line, just in actual candidates cancelling their service within 30 days of a bad candidate experience.

They didn't even need to look at word of mouth impact to see a material hit on their customer retention, in a sector where churn is costly. They went on a crusade to improve, and now find candidates for jobs are net promoters, and their customer acquisition cost via candidates is lower than normal advertising(!)

I think some of the big tech companies simply don't care about their reputation at either micro or macro level, and nobody wants to call out that kind of toxic behaviour as they're all "part of the club".

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This is actually a big thing we invest in at my current company: candidate experience and consequently a high Glassdoor rating. After focusing on it for years the company has one of the top ratings on Glassdoor (top 100 or 200 I forget). It’s a big differentiator when you’re not a big company and not a recognized brand. I think for FAANG companies they can get away with it because despite a poor experience, the actual job and pay/perks they offer are extremely desirable. Sad because, like you say, it’s not hard to see and make an impact on improving.

In my experience Glassdoor doesn’t mean shit. The single most dysfunctional, toxic work environment I’ve ever been in had - and still has - a high (>4) rating on Glassdoor. I won’t get into details but I was miserable and left after two months. They said all the right things during the interview but the reality was vastly different. The non-disparagement clause I had to sign on my way out was the icing on the cake. No wonder they have such a high rating if you’re not allowed to be honest about your experience.

At an employer prior to that, I saw first hand how companies were able to get negative but true reviews taken down almost as soon as they were posted. There was high turnover at that place and a lot of people were truthful in their reviews of the company. The Glassdoor rating was far higher than they deserved until they went under.

Im short, I’m sure you think you’ve got a great work environment, but I’ve been burned by bullshit Glassdoor reviews and I doubt I’m the only one.

That’s fair. It’s a metric so it doesn’t surprise me that it’s game-able like others. I guess as a candidate you have to use it as one data point. It’s tough because even interviewing as a candidate and asking lots of culture questions you only get, what, like 20 mns of questions answered? Before you commit to 40 hours a week? Sorry to hear you got burned. Toxic work environments are such a drain on life.

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