While we’re all schoked at AI recruiting scandals of various flavours. There are old tricks being pulled when it comes to Glassdoor reviews!
At this not-to-be-named Sales Outsourcing company from one of the British Isles. Employee sentiment appears to be running on two separate engines:
- one that powers glowing 5-star reviews about “progression opportunities” (whatever those are),
- while another that breaks down completely with pesky details like
“not getting paid on time” or
“being abandoned in random locations with the company van.”
Their suspiciously shiny reviews stick out like a CEO wearing flip-flops to a board meeting.
Leaving you wondering: Who knew a sales company would be doctoring their employee experience publicly?
But what about the facts?
Based on the reviews of collected from Glassdoor see data, there are several indicators that suggest some of the reviews might be artificially positive.
Will you take a guess which ones?
Ok, so you need helpers.
Enter Claude’s findings, yes the AI friend of most of us Claude, based on good ol’ human intuition from yours truly.
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Stark contrast in ratings and content - There’s a noticeable pattern where reviews are either very positive (4-5 stars) or very negative (1-2 stars) with little middle ground.
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Vague positive reviews vs. specific negative ones - The 5-star reviews tend to be brief and vague about positives (“great for my career,” “love working here”) while negative reviews provide specific complaints (late payments, exact days payments were delayed, detailed accounts of problems).
-
Inconsistent employee experience - Multiple negative reviews mention the same consistent issues (late payments, poor management) while positive reviews don’t address these widespread concerns at all.
Suspect positive review patterns:
- The 5-star reviews from “Administrative assistant” and “Anonymous employee” use similar language about “progression” and development
- Positive reviews lack specific details about what makes the company good
- Positive reviewers can’t think of any cons whatsoever, which is unusual even for good employers
- Job title patterns - The most positive reviews come from job titles like “Administrative assistant” or anonymous positions, while sales representatives (the company’s primary workforce) provide negative reviews.
These discrepancies suggest there might be artificially inflated positive reviews to counterbalance the consistent negative feedback from sales representatives who describe specific, recurring issues.
Ok, but why does it matter?
First, the company - even with those, seemingly fake positive reviews - is only mediocre. What if you would see all of their crews.
Second, I truly believe you cannot go out hunting for the best talent available while your house is on fire.
What’s next?
You can always comment on the social post that goes with this on Linkedin, or X/Twitter. Or just share it and add your best story. Your choice!
FAQ
Because everone loves a good chit-chat.
What you used AI to write this?
The idea came from me. I collected the data. Passed it to Claude with my suspicion. Didn’t ask it to lean hard. Then as it was really late, I asked it to add a quirkily funny lede. Which came out so bad I ended up scraping 66% of it, and then had to rewrite ther 33% too. But I would be lying if I’d say: “I would have totally written this today myself without Claude, no problem!” Is there any value in this post then still? I hope so, if nothing else you’ll be more critical towards posts written by random talent obsessed sourcing nerds writing about doctored employee experience reviews OR you’ll get more critical about employee experience reviews OR you’ll start to generally think more critically about stuff around you. Your choice which road you take!
Is the cute kitten AI generated to?
You can bet the farm on it, buddy. Leonardo came in to help me. Yes, the mature renaissance master. (Someone should write a horror movie script about FAQs. Just don’t make it into a prompt on chatGPT, please.)
Why do you care about a random company’s employee experience?
I don’t. But you may. And that’s enough incentive for me to write about it.