New beta of an employee salary-sharing service

By Tim Conneally | Published June 11, 2008, 1:30 PM

Glassdoor.com, a site that allows users to anonymously share workplace information -- including salary, job satisfaction, and workplace and protocol reviews -- has opened in beta.

With currently around 3,300 reviews and salary reports of almost 250 companies, Glassdoor seeks to, in the company's words, "become the TripAdvisor of the workplace." To do this, the site asks users to first submit an anonymous profile containing information about their current or former employer (from two years prior or less) before they can access anyone else's in-depth information.

If submitting a salary, it asks for the user's job title and location, salary (including bonuses and options), health and retirement benefits, and vacation time. Once submitted and confirmed, the user has access to the site's other listings, which can be sorted by company name, industry, or job title.

Listed industries include software/hardware-related, business services, media, financial, telecom, retail, automotive & transportation, banking, industrial, and pharmaceutical. Many of the biggest technology companies have hundreds of reviews and salary listings, such as Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Cisco, IBM, and Intel. Non-tech firms listed include Bank of America, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and even the US Postal Service.

Unfortunately, because posting is anonymous, there is no guarantee of authenticity of any content. However, some of the more eloquent reviews give a good idea into the mindset of certain types of employees, what they like and dislike, and what affects their overall workplace satisfaction.

Glassdoor broken

The site appears to suffer from many of the drawbacks of a service still early in its lifespan, with frequently inaccessible information and some very long load times. I entered a review of one of my former employers (an international telecommunications firm) that was not listed in the database, and the review took nearly ten minutes to post after hitting "Submit" and hanging numerous times.

Comments

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It's exceptionally annoying to have to register before you can see anything useful. I don't give my e-mail addresses out to just anyone, idiots.

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This should solve the problem once and for all: www.bugmenot.com

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That site also has the rather useful side effect of knowing potential troll usernames ahead of time for certain sites with forums... such as this one.

(comeoffit, vcorvinus, etc...)

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These days, after all this time, I figured most people have learned to have at least 2 e-mail addresses... one for personal use (friends and family), and another to serve as a spam sponge (forum and site registrations, etc).

Most web-based e-mail registrations are free, and many ISPs include multiple e-mail aliases when the account is setup. When the alias starts to become super-saturated with junk mail, it's time to delete it and create another.

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Exactly. 1 personal email and 1 for www crap, like forums and the like.

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One of those sites in which when you register, you are sent a confirmation email. After which, you'd need to click on a link in the confirmation email to fully access your account. No big deal, but it's also one of those sites in which the confirmation email takes FOREVER to get sent out.

Anything beyond 1 minute in this situation is an eternity for web users.

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