As University of Florida students, I think it’s only natural that we all dream big when it comes to the job search. I know on a nightly basis I dream of landing my dream job as creative director for L’Orèal or head buyer for Nordstrom. But since I want to go into the beauty industry, I hear on a daily basis, “Do you know how competitive that field is?” or “It’s a shark eat shark world in that facet,” and “Don’t work for them! I’ve heard it’s a sweatshop.” But I mean, I have to work someplace. And not only that, I want to work for these companies that I idolize! So where’s the middle ground where I work for brands I love, without compensating my worth and living in a total hell for the next two to five years? That’s where Glassdoor comes in to help.
I just started searching this site randomly the other day. I have no idea what made me think of it. Maybe it was a commercial I saw on TV about the website, or maybe it was discussing a job opening I saw for a company I love with my dad, who mentioned looking it up on Glassdoor. But whatever the reason, I found myself in an endless search of brand after brand.
Finding its company profile on Glassdoor and reading as many reviews as I could about the employee environment. I could only read the overall star rating and maybe a couple words of employee reviews before comments were cut off and the site urged me to create an account.
Finally, about a week later, I signed up for account because I couldn’t stop thinking about more companies I wanted to work for and wondering what its employees thought of it. I signed up with my email, but you can use your Facebook or Google account if you prefer those. Then the site asked for more information to set up my profile. It asked for my job title, where I was located and to upload a resume. I entered my job title as “student,” and placed my location as Gainesville, Florida. I uploaded my resume and hit “Continue,” which prompted me to a page to further my employee background. However, I’m obviously not employed as I’m a student. And there was no place to enter my degree, major, standing year, etc. This was a little frustrating as plenty of students could utilize this site as they get ready to graduate and join the workforce.
Once I got passed these steps, though, I began exploring the site. You can search and apply for jobs on Glassdoor, just like on LinkedIn, as well as keep track of what jobs you’ve applied for or save job listings to apply to later. The site will also estimate your “worth,” which is essentially your salary deserved, based on your title, company, location and experience.
The website also publishes its own articles, such as this one about companies hiring a lot in november. And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, the site allows users to look up companies to rate or find ratings about the organizations. For example, you can look up Steve Madden, find it’s Glassdoor profile, click “reviews” and find ratings and comments of current or previous employees of what they thought about working there. It’s so useful for anyone, but especially those of us just getting our foot in the door! Here’s my warning though, proceed with caution because it can get addicting.
The site does remind me a lot of LinkedIn, however, and I’m not quite sure what separates the two besides LinkedIn creating more of an in-depth profile for you, and Glassdoor having the employee rating system, which each site might actually do and I just haven’t gone as in-depth through my exploration. But on the surface they are fairly similar. This being said, two is always better than one. What I mean by this is, job searching is hard and stressful, and even if you find a job, that can be nerve-racking if you’re unsure of what you’ve signed up for or even which offer to accept. So why not use as many tools that are available to us? These outlets are luxuries our parents didn’t have, so I for one plan to take advantage of them. And even if I don’t always turn to these sites or use them perfectly in every way possible, at least I’m trying to help myself, and I’m probably way better off than if I didn’t use them at all.
Try Glassdoor out yourself, and see what you think. Maybe it’s not for you, but you never know until you try.