Pros
I've said it once and I'll say it again: the people at Glassdoor are above-and-beyond the finest group of humans you'll ever have the pleasure to work with. They've become my mentors, my friends, my best friends, and my family. Becoming part of that extended family is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. I can remember at my first job post-college, a more senior colleague said to me, "You'll never find a place this good." She was so wrong...for the most part. The personal & professional development was also top-notch. I'm not sure I fully recognized how strong our leaders were in providing that development on a daily basis, but I grew so much in my time at Glassdoor. From Guru Ganesh sales training to Gallop Strength Finder to SKO to Management Offsites, there was always something to look forward to in order to learn & develop. We definitely took our foot off the gas a few years back with emphasizing & enforcing proper sales training which was disappointing, but the roadmap that prior enablement leads crafted for our SMB org made up for that. Fun. It was just fun. It wasn't until the Recruit Acquisition that things started to feel different and we lost that spirit we were so famous for. BAMF, Spirit Days, team events & offsites, interactions with executives in casual environments, SMASHie Awards, etc. HR & Legal Teams - unfortunately, a lot of the strongest & best advocates left the company in the past few months, but our GC and team + HR rep in CHI were incredible in every way. They cared about the people and, particularly our HR rep, helped develop the personnel. I also admire the Executive team for truly wanting to know their people. This goes for Christian and Robert -- it was never scary or intimidating to approach either or provide feedback.
Cons
I will start this off by saying that I was fortunate enough to make the decision to leave Glassdoor prior to the mass layoffs. With that being said, my heart is still crushed that this was the path we (yes, I still refer to Glassdoor as 'we' because I will forever be part of it) went down. This was always the plan to reduce the SMB arm and roll it more & more under Indeed. But to completely eliminate the roles of 300 people in one fell swoop and blame it on COVID rather than plan feels like a tacky PR stunt. When reps that I hired, trained, and managed are reaching out in real-time as it was happening, fear in their voice because they weren't sure if they received the infamous calendar invite, and then tears when they got news that they were axed. They had no one to go to because everyone was in the same boat. It was like a shipwreck in the middle of a dark sea -- no horizon in sight, no one nearby to save them. Apart from the layoffs, there was several incredibly uncomfortable "situations" in recent years on the management front that should have never happened had proper training & protocol been in place. At a Sales Manager Offsite in ATX, the male leaders grouped together at the evening event to get a group to head to one of the local strip clubs. VPs, Directors, Managers. For (most of) the women there, it was a feeling of "Do I put myself in an uncomfortable and go with them so I can be 'part of the club' or do I stay behind and risk being seen as too immature to hang with the top dogs?" Thankfully, the majority of them decided not to go but how that crossed their minds as something appropriate to propose with their colleagues baffles me. It was the only time in my tenure that I actually felt uncomfortable and disappointed with our leaders and that I could miss out on an "opportunity" to "network" despite the inappropriate nature. There are other instances, as with any tech company, of relations between manager & rep which led to hostile work environments and, in some cases, fear. There was never retaliation for voicing concerns, but you always knew who knew what and whose side someone was on based on how they interacted with you...including a few leaders (past & present). The org, as it grew, began to feel divided between sides of right and wrong.
