My side project: Rank your tech company based on culture(becandid.co)
becandid.co
My side project: Rank your tech company based on culture
https://www.becandid.co
11 comments
Seconded. If you want people to be honest about their employers, tying it to the one place employers are almost certain to see it is a little daunting. I understand if you want to make sure they're actually employees of the place they're talking about, but (a) you should say that, and (b) what's to stop me from faking my LinkedIn?
Thanks for the feedback! We're adding a bit about the LinkedIn verification. For this MVP it is an easy way to check (within reason) someone actually works at a place. Sure, they may lie to linkedin, but for the MVP it was an 80/20 decision.
In its early days, Facebook used email verification at a certain domain to verify membership to a uni. Perhaps you could do the same?
I like that line of reasoning. I think the anonymity and peace of mind a company has NO way of tracking who visited the site would be degraded with work emails. Most US companies can and do read employee emails...Thanks for the feedback!
Agreed. I just deleted my LinkedIn due to privacy concerns so I couldn't use this if I wanted to.
Yep, totes.
I deleted my LinkedIn account months ago. This service could be pretty useful/interesting/funny to share around the office, but requiring LinkedIn is a killer (in a bad way) for me.
I deleted my LinkedIn account months ago. This service could be pretty useful/interesting/funny to share around the office, but requiring LinkedIn is a killer (in a bad way) for me.
Thanks for the feedback.
We're looking at other ways now to check if someone works at the company without requiring LinkedIn.
We will repost to HN once we add a second verification feature.
We're looking at other ways now to check if someone works at the company without requiring LinkedIn.
We will repost to HN once we add a second verification feature.
for what it's worth, this doesn't really seem like an effective way of verifying that someone works for a company in the first place.
Thanks for the input!
EXCELLENT feedback - I really appreciate it. We piggy-backed LinkedIn to "build on the shoulders of giants" but agree the explanation is necessary. Thanks again!
At this point, you might consider a more manual verification of people. Do things that don't scale, remember? :)
From experience, you can manually verify a lot and have a very few false positives. You might just require a bit more person to person interaction.
From experience, you can manually verify a lot and have a very few false positives. You might just require a bit more person to person interaction.
Nice point... this is what we do now for HR (paid) accounts... worth considering for sure...
Thanks again for the advice - wanted to let you know we updated the site over the weekend with better explanation of LinkedIn, an explicit privacy policy, and an alternate (albeit it a little heavy) way of asking for an account without LinkedIn.
Yes - this is the problem that most feedback sites have. I believe that Glassdoor uses Facebook as the verification. That way they at least know you are a real person, even if they can't explicitly verify that you actually worked there.
Indeed. We toyed with Facebook login, but we really wanted the current position information, without having to do a domain (work email) verification.
The first thing I looked for was a geographic search feature. Add this for job seekers like me who want to learn more about the good stuff in their communities!
"Window-shopping" is definitely a driver on the post-mvp roadmap. Geo search is an interesting idea...
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for the feedback!
Your algorithm for calculating final score seems flawed. For example, if I give location as best rating but pay sucks, the company's rating is still pretty good. In reality, pay matters much more than location. You should adopt overall happiness as the final score and leave everything else as details instead of doing average or weighted average of individual score. Also other questions you might want to include:
* Do you think, on average, you work with smart people in your area?
* Would you recommend this company to your friends?
* How do you feel about management/politics/agility?
PS: I like the idea of using Linked-In profile. Nice.
* Do you think, on average, you work with smart people in your area?
* Would you recommend this company to your friends?
* How do you feel about management/politics/agility?
PS: I like the idea of using Linked-In profile. Nice.
Very nice... We surveyed a hundred or so corporate types to settle on our 7 factors... but we do want to experiment with new questions.
We also envision a responsive algorithm based on a variety of variables (i.e., questions skipped or ignored repeatedly).
We also envision a responsive algorithm based on a variety of variables (i.e., questions skipped or ignored repeatedly).
Thanks everyone for the input! I wanted to let all those who gave feedback know we updated the site over the weekend with better explanation of LinkedIn, an explicit privacy policy, and an alternate (albeit it a little heavy) way of asking to review a company without LinkedIn.
Neat concept....keep in mind that culture and fit can vary from person to person and you're going to have a range of experiences. What's important is organizing companies based on their culture so people can match themselves better.
Yea like what does a score of 80 mean? Maybe company A really values free spirited people, a bunch of people rate them highly because of that, but the reader doesn't like that.
How can you make the scores more relevant to a new visitor? I'd personally like a little survey that asks me what I value in a culture, and then calculates a match based on what other people have seen.
How can you make the scores more relevant to a new visitor? I'd personally like a little survey that asks me what I value in a culture, and then calculates a match based on what other people have seen.
Interesting idea- we were interested in the score to start so that companies with great culture can wear it with a badge of honor. Statistically, anything above 50 is above average. 80s, and 90s would be very very good Candid scores.
Thanks for the feedback. This is our MVP so we're interesting in all things related to transparent HR practices...
-Madison
-Madison
The white header/light grey body text is very hard to read against that background image.
Roger that. Thanks for the feedback.
Wow. Searched for 10 well known companies and nothing. Pretty lame. Side project indeed.
Perhaps it's new? </s>
Brand spanking new - Launched last week at LAUNCH Festival in SF.
Yup just launched last week. Working on roll out plan now to prime the pump.
A list of the known companies would be useful, rather than just having to search.
Good point - we're thinking of reworking the main page to scroll more featured/recently scored companies.
Shame it needs LinkedIn permissions.
How about some kind of privacy policy?
How about some kind of privacy policy?
We'll be adding that shortly. LinkedIn was the 'easiest' way to do a litmus test on whether someone works as a place currently or not. Not perfect, but was a good start.
LinkedIn permwall. No thanks. Flagged.
I'm no fan of LinkedIn, but flagging seems a bit harsh.
I'm not interested in registering, but looking at the sign-up page, it seems signing in with LinkedIn is optional, is it not?
I'm not interested in registering, but looking at the sign-up page, it seems signing in with LinkedIn is optional, is it not?
No, it actually says you need to sign in with LinkedIn to verify you work for the company you say you do(also not hard to fake so don't know why they insist, my bet is this is a LinkedIn employee). No thanks, and no guarantee that your info isn't shared etc. This seems like it has a high potential for abuse.
We'll add the guarantee your info won't and can't be shared.
No account is Candid required, we simply use the LinkedIn API to check that the current position for that would-be reviewer has a current position at the company they are trying to review.
As you mention someone could scam that of course. We're working on ways to get even better data (i.e. real current employees).
This is our MVP and we wanted to get people scoring companies as frictionless as possible.
No account is Candid required, we simply use the LinkedIn API to check that the current position for that would-be reviewer has a current position at the company they are trying to review.
As you mention someone could scam that of course. We're working on ways to get even better data (i.e. real current employees).
This is our MVP and we wanted to get people scoring companies as frictionless as possible.
Flagged is a bit much. It is a fair criticism to make that requiring LinkedIn is probably very inappropriate and probably completely counter productive but that is enough I think.
Thanks for commenting! we're adding an explanation for the linkedin stuff shortly.
Hey Michael,
Sorry for the lack of explanation. We're adding some copy to explain why we require a linked in verification. Basically, it was of the few ways we can check where someone works without sending an email to their work email - hence keeping it 100% anon.
We're working on it!
-Madison
Sorry for the lack of explanation. We're adding some copy to explain why we require a linked in verification. Basically, it was of the few ways we can check where someone works without sending an email to their work email - hence keeping it 100% anon.
We're working on it!
-Madison
See, I wanted to review some ex-employers, but I don't put my whole career history on LinkedIn. Here's my explanation of why: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-wiped-m...
I have an ideological issue with LinkedIn. It made some people I like a boatload of money, so I like it on that front, but I also feel like the modern trend of oversharing one's economic relationships is really dangerous, so I prefer to keep my career history semi-private. I'm not ashamed of anything (except one shitball startup where I worked for 3 months and that I don't include on my resume) but I prefer to conserve information in a game (private-sector self-preservation and advancement) that is more adversarial than it is socially acceptable to admit.
I have an ideological issue with LinkedIn. It made some people I like a boatload of money, so I like it on that front, but I also feel like the modern trend of oversharing one's economic relationships is really dangerous, so I prefer to keep my career history semi-private. I'm not ashamed of anything (except one shitball startup where I worked for 3 months and that I don't include on my resume) but I prefer to conserve information in a game (private-sector self-preservation and advancement) that is more adversarial than it is socially acceptable to admit.
Badass. Thanks for sharing
[deleted]
How about a real response. FUCK YOU
No prior explanation of what the data will be used for, no assurance that my information will be anonymous, nothing. Closed the tab.
Please consider supporting alternate signup methods for those of us that don't want personal information tied to reviews. I know you very well may not do this, but if you don't tell people that up front, the mind goes places...