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Should negative online company reviews stop me from pursuing employment at a company?

Elaine Varelas provides job interview tips and guidance when a company has negative company culture reviews and ways to gauge company culture beyond employee reviews.

Ask the Job Doc. Boston.com

September 25, 2024

3 minutes to read

Q. I am interviewing for jobs at two companies and they both seem to be very interested in me. The problem? BOTH companies have horrible Glassdoor, Indeed.com and Comparably employee reviews and incredibly low ratings, which is a bit worrying. I know you have to take reviews with a grain of salt, but when the reviews seem so consistently awful, it gives me pause. Should I not bother continuing with either?

A. Congratulations for knowing not to interview for just one job at a time. Running multiple job searches and interviews is the way to ensure you have a successful job search. And it’s important that you’re doing research on what the company culture is like by using tools like Glassdoor and Indeed. Reading the negative reviews should be concerning and yes, you do have to take them with a grain of salt. The first thing you need to do is research what’s happened at the companies. Have they recently gone through layoffs, which would typically cause negative reviews. Has something significantly negative happened in the business that led to a drop in stock price, which again, would cause negative reviews. It’s important to also look at the dates of the reviews as company culture can change over time.

As a job seeker, you should feel very comfortable asking the folks in Human Resources pointed questions about the issues raised in these reviews and what they feel has led to negative company reviews on these sites. First, if they’re not responding to the negative reviews, ask them why that is their strategy. As a company, you should absolutely consider responding to any reviews on these platforms. Be appreciative and craft thoughtful, professional responses that address reviewer concerns while maintaining a positive image for potential candidates reading the reviews.

If you’re not comfortable with the answers that you’re getting during your interviews, or they minimize feedback from what they refer to as disgruntled former employees, try to investigate what might be going on at the organization. Use your network to connect to and speak with current employees or team members. You may be able to track down some of the people who have posted reviews and ask them, as many of these people don’t always use anonymous names.

What you want to do is give everyone the opportunity to address any negative feedback from employees about the company and whether it is valid. So, for example, let’s say they got rid of commuter benefits, and you’ll be working remotely. Something like that might not impact you and you might not care. However, if they changed from a 50% contribution to your health plan to a 100% employee paid health plan, that might be something that would impact you much more significantly.

Also review the current leadership of the organization. Have changes been made in leadership since these reviews were posted, or are all these comments about the leadership that is still in place? Again, the grain of salt is important, but if there is consistency in these reviews, pay close attention to what people have said and why. You owe it to yourself to be in a good culture and this is why it’s important to do your due diligence before accepting a job offer. And once you’ve given people the opportunity to address the situation, you’ll make the right decision on what to do about continuing or ending the interview process.

And if you’ve had a good experience with your current company or an organization that you’ve worked at in the past, you might consider writing them a review for the benefit of other job seekers as it could help your company with their recruiting efforts. If you have found these company reviews to be valuable, you are doing other job seekers a favor if you have positive feedback for your current or former company.