Do you trust the online company reviews, for example Glassdoor.com? I am on the job hunt and it is hard to know whether a company is any good or not, and if I would enjoy working there but it seems these online reviews can give a sense of what it is like. One thing I would be cautious of is that no one really reports good news/conditions. Negative feelings more often prompt people to post.
Yes, I do read them. Glassdoor is the best, followed by indeed. Kind of like yelp, you have to weed out the outliers, but it is typically pretty easy to do.
One thing to make sure of is that you are looking at similar positions, and preferably in the same location. A call rep handling complaints all day is going to have a much different outlook on the place than a manager overseeing a team of analysts. The analysts will have a different view still. It is good for a high-level overview, but an individual department and even team could be very different than what the reviews are that you see online. Even among locations, at my old job there were 3 campuses in one town--all had a different vibe, from the unofficial dress code to the length of lunch you could take.
All the reviews I've read on my company were mostly accurate, but were mostly written by disgruntled current and former employees and carried an overly negative tone. Kinda like how people will tell everyone about a bad experience but never bring up a good one.
I'm pretty sure most of the sickeningly positive reviews of my company were fabricated by people in our HR department.
Swank Force One wrote: I'm pretty sure most of the sickeningly positive reviews of my company were fabricated by people in our HR department.
Or brand new employees.
Is there additional/better ways to get a feel for what working for the company would really be like? It would be nice to be able to have an honest one on one with employees at a location but I wouldn't know how to go about that
One of the companies I was going to talk to at next week's career fair has just awful reviews 
fritzsch wrote: One of the companies I was going to talk to at next week's career fair has just awful reviews
I've brought it up in interviews before. It may be shooting myself in the foot, but I need to know.
Look at where the employees go for lunch, you might see a group all going to a restaurant in the area, and strike up a conversation.
(I wonder how long until HR hires actors to play employees on lunch break 
)
Find people on LinkedIn and PM them? (I kind of wish I wasn't too privacy-conscious to touch LinkedIn with a 30-foot pole)
fritzsch wrote: Is there additional/better ways to get a feel for what working for the company would really be like? It would be nice to be able to have an honest one on one with employees at a location but I wouldn't know how to go about that
Get on linkedin and see if you know anyone who works there, or did work there--even if you aren't that close to them, if you know them well enough to say "hi" in an elevator reach out and tell them you'll pay for coffee. If it is big enough, try a post on City-Data or Reddit.
I read the reviews on current and past employers on Glassdoor and found they were pretty close to what I had seen and experienced.
a recruiter told me once that the salary estimates were too accurate for his liking.
mtn wrote:fritzsch wrote: One of the companies I was going to talk to at next week's career fair has just awful reviewsI've brought it up in interviews before. It may be shooting myself in the foot, but I need to know.
It's an interesting way to reverse the heat on them and put them on the spot. I'd think that a complete lack of morale and massive turnover might deserve some explanation. The retail world just denies/ignores it. I don't know what professional fields do.
moparman76_69 wrote: All the reviews I've read on my company were mostly accurate, but were mostly written by disgruntled current and former employees and carried an overly negative tone. Kinda like how people will tell everyone about a bad experience but never bring up a good one.
Well, I looked at reviews of my former company and everyone who wrote a positive review was either still a new employee or had one of the really desirable or awesome jobs. Everyone who wrote negative reviews were either past employees or current employees that are in E36 M3 positions.
In reply to gamby:
I've asked what they think the strengths and weaknesses of the company are. That can give insight into some of the more negative bits without directly asking what is bad
I found that both my present and prior employers had mostly accurate reviews.
Ignore the edge cases and look for common themes. If 15 people say the same sort of thing it's likely not just griping.
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