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By VICKIE ELMER — Look inside before you commit to walk through the gates or guard station every day. Do your due diligence on an employer before you sign on as an employee.
Starting today, there’s another way to peek in to corporate cultures: It’s Great Rated! a “social search engine for workplace culture,” developed by the organization that researches Fortune’s Best Places to Work list.
It was created by Great Places to Work Institute which has studied workplaces for 25 years and has an inspiring mission statement.
It joins Glassdoor, Indeed, Vault and a variety of others that rate and relay workers’ often-anonymous perspectives on workplace culture.
Great Rated! has impeccable timing, since so many workers are tired of their jobs and want to trade up. One survey by CareerBuilder showed that one-fourth of all workers were job hunting, though others show an even higher share searching.
What it doesn’t have yet are a large number of employers. It will start with 24 companies that have been through its ratings and reviews. “But it will be more each day,” a spokeswoman says, with more than 100 interested in joining. Its more established competitors list hundreds or thousands of employers.
To join Great Rated!, employers pay a $995 fee (more if they want add-ons for branding and social media), and then stand aside while the site’s owner distributes a random survey to a “representative sample” of the company’s employees.
“Companies cannot pick and choose who takes the survey,” Great Rated! CEO Kim Peters said through a spokeswoman. Some other rating sites are based on ‘”ad hoc comments,” she noted several times.
Great Rated! uses a statistically valid survey to create “a true picture of the workplace,” Peters said through a spokeswoman.
At Glassdoor, “we never claim the reviews to be scientific since they are based on employees’ opinions; however we do feel that they are directionally relevant,” said Samantha Zupan, a spokeswoman. It does, however, publish the entire reviews so jobseekers can note “the good, the bad and everything in between,” she noted.
The debut gives me the chance to provide readers – whether they’re soon to graduate from a university or hope to leave a 20-year now-stale career with one company – some suggestions on where to look up a potential future employer.
Start with the company’s own website. Then visit two or three workplace culture ratings sites – and go visit the employer in person.
Here’s some options for the initial research:
I’m also partial to the Fortune Best employers list (note that I proudly contribute to Fortune and Fortune.com) and lists by Working Mother and one by DiversityInc. Some regional lists, created by business media or local nonprofits, also can be valuable.
One thing for all job seekers to remember is that most of these sites earn most or all of their money from the employer, which places ads, job listings, buy services or access, or in Indeed’s case pay per clicks.
Some take care to disclose what information is provided by the employer, but not all clear on their methods. Look at their FAQs and disclosures – transparency is important in information providers as well as from future employers.
Original post:
http://workingkind.com/2013/04/unlocking-inside-information-on-future-employers/
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