In this article, we will see How does Glassdoor make money?
Introduction
Glassdoor is a job search engine and a review site headquartered in San Francisco, California, and was founded in 2007. This American website provides a platform for both former and current employees to apply for jobs and submit their reviews about the salaries without revealing their identities so that people can make the right career decisions. Glassdoor also has the feature of posting photographs of offices and any company-relevant media. They ensure that all the reviews posted are from actual employees. The ratings given by Glassdoor to any company are purely based on the reviews posted by the employees of the respective companies. Recruiters can post jobs on Glassdoor and hire candidates. Nowadays, users can also post about the interview questions and the benefits of working in their respective companies. Glassdoor is an online directory for all the information relating to a given company. However, in 2018, Glassdoor was acquired by a Japanese company named Recruit Holdings for a whopping amount of USD 1.2 billion. Glassdoor also has offices in Chicago. London, Dublin, Sao Paulo.
Glassdoor generates revenue through selling premium packages to employers. The business model of Glassdoor is mainly based on job postings, branding of employers and the promotion, advertisement of job listings, and the review intelligence of Glassdoor and is known to be the marketplace exclusively for human resources. Glassdoor charges a specific amount from the employers to post the job openings and promote and advertise their companies. It is free for the job seekers but makes money through the employers. It offers a subscription to recruiters starting at USD 8000 for 12 months. They can build enhanced profiles to promote job openings, add information about the unique benefits offered by the company, company culture, add office photographs. Recruiters can also add the latest updates about the company on Glassdoor in this subscription plan. Glassdoor offers different methods to recruiters according to their needs. In this way, Glassdoor has monetized its platform.
Working of Glassdoor
Glassdoor is a platform that provides all the information one needs to make the right career decision. Along with reviews, employees can also post information regarding:
- Salary offered by a particular company to their workers for the different positions
- Interview questions
- A specific company offers various incentives like a bonus, vacation time, official trips, accommodation, car, etc.
Currently, Glassdoor provides a variety of services to assist businesses in finding qualified candidates for open positions. However, while employees and candidates can use the site for free, employers must pay to use it.
Following are the ways by which Glassdoor makes money:
Revenue generation through Job Posting
Employers can post three positions on Glassdoor for free. But if the listing exceeds three, the employer has to pay a sum of USD 249 for each listing.
For medium and large businesses, Glassdoor has designed different packages. Through the sale of these premium packages, Glassdoor generates a significant portion of its total revenue.
Revenue generation through Job Advertising
The site is monetized by job postings as well. This helps employers make their job ads more visible by putting them at the top of the employment stream. The feature of the job ads offered by Glassdoor is in premium packages structured for medium and large enterprises.
Medium and large businesses can promote and advertise their job openings and hire deserving candidates in their companies by using the job advertisement feature offered by Glassdoor.
Revenue generation through Employer Branding
Employer branding improves the reach of a company on the Glassdoor site. There are various options available like:
- Improve the business feed with the help of positive reviews
- Advertise and promote the company with photos and videos
- Removing the competing advertisements from the profile of the company
- Employers can target job seekers through online advertising campaigns and the Glassdoor platform.
Recruiters can get the pricing information by submitting a request to Glassdoor. Glassdoor will provide the pricing details to the employer as a part of the more extensive package.
Glassdoor Review Intelligence
Glassdoor has also come up with a way to monetize the original review system is built. Through the Glassdoor Review Intelligence service, companies can identify hidden emotions found in their reviews, focusing on management, culture, and inclusion. This is accomplished through natural language processing. Glassdoor uses natural language processing to transform the sentiment of comments into advanced and actionable insights. Recruiters can obtain a price for this service by contacting the sales team of Glassdoor.
Glassdoor Financing
The company received its first financing in 2008 after receiving USD 3 million in funding before its launch. In 2012, Glassdoor received USD 20 million in venture capital, bringing its total external funding to USD 42.2 million. In the following year, the company raised another USD 50 million. In 2015, the company raised another USD 70 million in a round of investment led by Google Capital, bringing the company’s valuation to slightly less than USD 1 billion. The total investment is currently USD 160 million. In 2016, Glassdoor raised another USD 40 million from its investors. In May 2018, Recruit Holdings announced that it intends to acquire Glassdoor for USD 1.2 billion in cash. The acquisition of Glassdoor by Recruit Holdings was completed in June 2018.
Glassdoor has evolved into much more than a mere review site since its humble origins. The organization now offers three programs to help employers identify qualified people for vacant positions, namely Free, Standard and Select. Each plan differs from one another in terms of features and functionality. The mission of Glassdoor is to help people around the world find jobs and companies that they like. To achieve this goal, they share good and bad news about different companies to make the right decisions for people. Users can also compare two companies based on work-life balance, availability of career opportunities, culture, top management approval.
Most importantly, Glassdoor will recommend which companies to follow based on personal interests and work experience. Employers can build their brand presence in Glassdoor and highlight their aim, company’s statement, and logo to attract job seekers. They can also post their awards and key updates to show why people want to join them. Glassdoor also provides the option of responding to reviews, which makes the platform interactive. It has emerged as a new market that has pushed recruiters to pay Glassdoor in order to hire qualified and deserving candidates in their companies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1) What are actions taken by Glassdoor to protect the anonymity of its users?
Answer: Glassdoor protects and defends the right of their users to freely and truthfully talk about their views and experiences at work without any fear of intimidation or retaliation from the firms. If a company takes legal action to find out who wrote a particular review, Glassdoor usually fights for the user’s right to post a workplace experience review without being identified in court.
Q2) What can an employer do about negative reviews about his/her company?
Answer: The employer has four available options to handle reviews about his/her company. They either can flag them, respond to them or ask their employees to post more reviews about the company. If the company wants, it can also take legal action.
Q3) Does Glassdoor remove reviews that have been flagged by the employer as false and defamatory?
Answer: Glassdoor does side with any party in case of factual disputes. The reviewers post whatever they believe; their reviews reflect their real experiences and take responsibility for what they post. So, if the company or the company’s lawyers contacts Glassdoor to tell them that something in the company’s opinion is false and defamatory, Glassdoor cannot decide who to believe. Unless Glassdoor finds any kind of violation of their policies, they allow their users to retain their opinions.
But of course, if it is obvious to us that a review is false on the basis of Glassdoor’s access to reliable information from an independent source (like the facts in an article from reputable media), Glassdoor will take down the opinion. But the company has to understand that Glassdoor is a neutral forum for content posted by their users, not a news organization. Therefore, it is not their role to research and verify every claim in a review. If the company offers to send Glassdoor any kind of evidence to prove their stand, they will politely decline. Glassdoor is simply not prepared to determine the accuracy, completeness, or authenticity of any evidence provided to them by someone interested in removing a negative review. And the company should keep in mind that content decisions are at Glassdoor’s sole discretion and are not negotiated in any circumstances.
Q4) Does Glassdoor notify companies when someone posts a review about them?
Answer: Companies can get a notification when a new review is posted about them if they have a free employer account in Glassdoor. The employers can use the feature of email notification in the Glassdoor Employer Centre.
