If you’ve used Glassdoor to help you find your next job and you didn’t find it helpful, Lensa offers an alternative with many advantages. Using an AI-powered search engine, we bring education and empowerment to your job search.
Glassdoor in a Nutshell
Glassdoor was founded in 2007 in San Fransisco, California. It was acquired in 2018 by the Japanese firm Recruit Holdings.
At its inception, Glassdoor was designed to bring transparency to the workplace, offering insights into the employee experience, work culture, salary reports, interview reviews, and overall job satisfaction.
To date, Glassdoor welcomes over 60 million monthly visitors to its site, which hosts over 100 million company reviews.
How Lensa Compares to Glassdoor for Job Seekers
The most notable difference between Glassdoor and Lensa lies in the mission of the two companies. Whereas Glassdoor was created with the aim of bringing transparency to the workplace and has since branched off to also enable job seekers to look for open positions, Lensa was designed with the sole focus of matching people with their ideal potential employer.
Lensa remains committed to its original purpose. This doesn’t mean, however, that Lensa remains static. No. Lensa continues to adapt to trends in the job market and continues to incorporate the latest technological advancements (such as gamification that evaluates a job seeker’s work style to then pair them with the right job opportunities and offer suggestions for alternative career paths).
Lensa’s AI-powered search engine analyzes billions of data points collected from job descriptions, resumes, and candidates’ work histories. With these insights, Lensa is not only able to suggest current job opportunities that match the candidate’s profile, but also it can help the job seeker effectively navigate their desired long-term career path.
Both job portals strive to empower workers, but they go about achieving this aim in different ways. Glassdoor focuses on workplace transparency with employee reviews while Lensa focuses on providing comprehensive analytics, bringing education to the job search.
The Advantages of Using Lensa for Your Job Search
What helps set Lensa apart from other online job portals is the advanced AI technology its search engine incorporates.
By combining the latest in artificial intelligence with a dedicated staff of caring professionals, Lensa tackles the problems job seekers face today – lack of relevant offers, lack of transparency, and short-sighted solutions.
Instead, Lensa empowers job seekers with the insights they need to make informed decisions not only in their job search but for their longer career goals as well.
In contrast to Glassdoor, Lensa is simple to use and doesn’t require job seekers to first provide content to the site before accessing the many job opportunities available.
Pros and Cons of Using Glassdoor for Your Job Search
Pros
Workplace transparency – The many reviews of companies that employees leave can potentially allow job seekers to avoid potentially toxic environments.
Easy Apply – The ‘Easy Apply’ function that figures in many of the job offers posted on Glassdoor gives job seekers a quick and easy way to contact prospective employers. This feature usually consists of forms the candidate must fill out, which are then sent directly to the recruiter.
Cons
Complicated search function – Unlike other job portals where job seekers can look for job opportunities by simply entering a keyword, Glassdoor’s search function is more complicated. The job seeker needs to fill out a form with their preferences before they can see any job opportunities available.
While this may be helpful in narrowing down the search, it is a big inconvenience for the job seeker who is casting a larger net (looking for different kinds of positions within a given field).
Limited number of job offers – As Glassdoor is not primarily a job search engine but rather a company review platform, it does not have as many job offers as other online job portals.
Limited access – Visitors to the site are only able to read reviews if they themselves leave reviews. And they must leave reviews periodically. (One review left does not entitle you to life-long access to the site.)
Poor user reviews – It is clear from perusing the many reviews of Glassdoor that a large percentage of users do not trust the site.
Glassdoor: User Feedback
The ultimate tale of the tape comes down to user feedback. What are users saying about Glassdoor?
Surprisingly, for a company whose main focus is on providing transparency in the workplace, the aggregate of user reviews for the site is a low 1.2 out of 5 stars.
A perusal of the reviews of Glassdoor expresses a mistrust for the site. Many users have their reviews rejected for seemingly no reason. This leads many users to think the site is selective as to which reviews they post and which they choose to share. For a site with a stated commitment to democratic principles and giving the people a voice, there are many people who leave the site without the opportunity to speak their mind.
Among the frequent complaints users make, you can find:
- Fake reviews – Many users feel that some companies (if not the majority of companies) encourage their employees to leave disingenuous positive reviews. Some, allegedly, create fake accounts to leave fake reviews.
- Spam and pop-ups – While navigating the site, users are frequently interrupted by pop-up forms and pop-up solicitations. Additionally, users complain of excessive spamming if they have set up job alerts.
- Biased toward disgruntled employees – Employers have no recourse when it comes to correcting false or misleading information a disgruntled employee may leave.
Lensa: User Feedback
The ultimate tale of the tape comes down to user feedback. What are users saying about Lensa?
With roughly the same amount of reviews, Lensa comes away with a very different score when it comes to user satisfaction. Whereas Glassdoor is ranked as ‘Bad’ (1.2 stars) Lensa is ranked as ‘Great’ (4.2. stars).
By perusing the many site reviews, you will find frequent mentions of the following:
- Excellent customer service (personal, friendly, and helpful)
- Excellent and relevant job matches
- Success in finding the right job
- Simple and easy to use
It’s not a surprise that Lensa scores so favorably with its users. Lensa has spent over 15 years listening to its users, taking their feedback into consideration to transform what was once a small start-up into one of the most well-reputed job portals in the world.
Despite the influx of competing online job portals, Lensa has remained faithful to its initial vision – To empower people to make better career decisions. And by combining the latest AI technology with a team of dynamic, dedicated professionals, we continue to work tirelessly toward achieving that goal.
Lensa vs Glassdoor in a Nutshell
Glassdoor is a popular site for leaving and reading reviews of companies, with salary reports and overall comments on work culture and job satisfaction. On the other hand, Lensa is more focused on matching candidates with their ideal job. Both sites are free to use (though Glassdoor requires its users to first post a review before gaining access to the site’s feature), and there is no reason why the job seeker can’t use both platforms concurrently to help in their job search.
Our team of friendly dedicated professionals is here for you. Let us empower you to make better decisions for your career.
