“Your trust is our top concern, so companies can’t alter or remove reviews.” ~Glassdoor

I was recently shocked when my review on Glassdoor was taken down. It wasn’t a flattering review of my former employer, but it was 100% accurate.

I wanted to post the item anonymously as possible. I am fearful of retaliation even if I no longer work at the company. CEO’s, COO’s, VP’s, directors, etc have connections to other upper management people at companies in the area;  networking is a company’s life blood. I didn’t want to become ostracized in my field, never to work again. Not that I thought they were that vindictive, but I didn’t want to take the chance over a review.

I made sure that the content of the review was stuff I experienced in over 5 years at the position but I also included other things I observed. This, I felt, would keep management guessing at who posted the negative review.

I created a temporary email address that had no other connection but as the subscription to Glassdoor.  Glassdoor shut down my attempt to use TOR, my way of hiding my IP address location from Glassdoor’s logs. With my new employer, I had an offsite meeting in another city. My new plan was to post in the hotel, thus reducing the risk of identifying me by me ip.

The requirement from Glassdoor for posting a review was take the high road and not make personal attacks. I called out the CEO on his short comings and what he could do to improve the company. Isn’t that what a CEO wants, feedback on how to improve moral?

My review went through the review process and posted a week later. I felt I kept my side of the agreement with Glassdoor. The item was on the site for 8 months, got 7 “Helpful” reviews (more than any other review for the company). Then at some point, the review was removed.

I came across an article about a lawfirm looking to sue Glassdoor for names of the users that posted negative reviews. It is this type of chilling effect/censorship/retaliation that worried me in my original posting. But what I was noticing from the article was the reviews the story linked to were slowly getting removed from Glassdoor with the note “This review you were looking for has been removed by the author or by the moderator.”.  The link after the text goes into the reasons for removal.

From my perspective since I didn’t request the removal, the review should be available. If there was an issue, it could be hidden with a reason and the option to view it. I took a huge risk posting it and it might have even caused some tension with the current employees as the CEO threw his suspicions around, in an attempt to oust the author of the review.

The company in question has a Glassdoor account. I know for a fact that the CEO was submitting multiple glowing reviews from several different email accounts. I assume from those accounts, my review was flagged in an attempt to get it removed.

My review was appropriate and constructive to the executives and to new hires. It’s unfortunate that it is gone, leaving a bunch of inaccurate, glowing reviews.

And what shocked me was another review from an employee on another company review site. It had a statement that the CEO was reprimanding the employees (at a company meeting) to give good reviews at Glassdoor as well as high marks on “best place to work” sites. This happened after I left the company.

I do have a trust issue.   I don’t trust that companies will fight to keep their user’s identities anonymous in the face of a lawsuit.

Glassdoor has a trust issue. IMHO, it favors the employer much more than the job seeker.

(I will post my review on another review site, one that I can stay anonymous and my review isn’t removed)