Wouldn’t you love to know what you’d earn if you worked for your employer’s biggest competitor?
The newest website from Expedia and Zillow creator Richard Barton sets out to shed some light on that and similar questions - from an employee’s perspective.
Glassdoor.com allows users to anonymously rate the companies they’ve worked for, expound on pros and cons of their employers, and post their salaries.
Here’s the catch: if you want to see any reviews, you have to post your own assessment of a current or recently past employer. If you want to see salaries, entering your salary is required. Although the reviews remain anonymous, if you’re working in a small company, using Glassdoor may give you pause.
Glassdoor was first opened to a test market in the San Francisco bay area. To give potential users a sample of what they’ll be able to peruse once they’ve registered, the site currently lists reviews for Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems.
The reviews posted so far have been candid; one user reveals that Google, “pushes a highly ‘googley’ atmosphere, which is something akin to what the Brady Bunch would be like if they lived in communist Russia. Everything from the carpet to the bathroom tiles incorporate the Google colors into its design.”
You can also see that a software engineer at Google makes an average salary of $99,918, making the company the highest payer of software engineers in comparison to competitors Yahoo! and Cisco Systems.
Glassdoor reaches out to employers too, acknowledging the potential for some negative consequences for company higher-ups, “Although this might feel a bit uncomfortable at first, we think offering more transparency will have far-reaching benefits for everyone involved.”
In addition to Richard Barton, the company was co-founded by Robert Hohman, who is serving as the company’s CEO and director. The former Hotwire.com president previously worked with Barton at Microsoft and Expedia. The third co-founder, Tim Besse, is another Expedia alum.
Glassdoor is funded by Benchmark Capital, an investment firm where Barton is a venture partner.
Additional support comes from seasoned industry advisors and board members, including Deborah Barber of the Jackson Hole Group, former Expedia and IAC/InterActive Corp. CEO Erik Blachford, and Trip Advisor CEO and co-founder Stephen Kaufer.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
3 Comments
#1. Stuart Paves / SMAP MANUFACTURING , HARVEY,ILLINOIS 02.11.2009
Stuart Paves the owner of SMAP MANUFACTURING located at 15240 Dixi highway uses and exploits the american and illegal latino community as well as the africian american citizens.This company also makes beauty products as well as infant products in the same tanks as he makes car products in and with out the proper cleaning techinques leaves resduals in all products produced by this company. This company also dumps hundreds of gallons down the sewer system that he can not bribe the garbage to take and the product contains chemicals that show will harm plant and wild life as well as humans.With the death of a latino father due to the owner allowing untrained and uncertified people to operate forklifts, left a widow with a child fatherless and only gave her 2 weeks pay for her loss,and then joked about it in the office because she was illegal.Any company chooseing to use this company should be held accountable as well. It is very sad in this day and age hard working people are not treated with respect and companies like Smap Manufacturing should be pointed out to everyone.
#2. current employee 03.03.2009
My comment to you is that you need a job and stop going to all these websites and bad mouthing a good comany with great bosses. Plus you should stop talking about things you relly do not know about. They are very clean there because I have personally watch them clean out the tanks and test the products that come out and if they were badd too the company would send them back to us. So please I ask to stop say things about my company that I work for and yes I am a latino american and so is my boss in the plant and my line leader if they treat us so bad why are they giving us so much respondiblty. So to all the people that have been reading this persons because they can not even say there name, please do not listen to someone who is just hurt and bitter just get over it and find a new job alredy
#3. Brad 03.31.2009
I would like to retract any comments or statements made about Smap mannufacturing and its owner Stuart Paves.All witten comments are untrue and false and written in anger after being laid off of my position at Smap manufacturing wich impaired my judgement at the time I wrote this .I would like to appologize to Smap manufacturing,its owner Stuart Paves and the employees at smap manufacturing for any inconvience I have caused.
Leave a Comment