New beta of an employee salary-sharing service
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.
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.