Archive for April, 2009

They asked you what during the interview?!?

Posted by • April 29th, 2009 • 7 Comments

All of us have gone through a number of interviews in our time, and most have stories about an oddball question or two that stumped us along the way. But our guess is most haven’t heard some of the crazy interview questions we’ve seen in our new Interview Reviews and Questions section we launched Monday night.

We’ve scoured the Interview Questions that have posted thus far, and pulled out some interesting and unexpected questions that we thing could stump even the best job candidate.

How would you answer these?

You’re on a farm, and you’re in a field with horses and you have a fence that you have to repair. But you left your hammer back at the house, what do you do? Remember the fence is broken and you cannot leave it alone otherwise the horses will escape -Intermediate Software Developer, The PEER Group
You are in a room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don’t know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can NOT use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch?- Interview ...

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Impressions Killers: What The Interview Says About Your Company!

Posted by • April 28th, 2009 • 1 Comment

It’s true.  We only get one chance to make a first impression.  When a company interviews a potential candidate they may get three to five or more interview impressions but when all totaled, they become the “first impression” of the company. This is an important connection, and this impression should be actively managed by companies so each candidate leaves with a positive impression – even if they do not receive a job offer. You can read some of these impressions through Glassdoor.com’s new Interview Questions and Reviews section it launched earlier today.

Here are five “impression killers” I’ve personally witnessed and caution all employers to manage away from if you want the candidate to leave with the best possible impression and become a potential future ambassador for the company:

“What are you here for?” That one question from an interviewer can ruin the whole day for a candidate.  That never happens, you say?  Yes it does and more often than you know.  Once that door shuts and the candidate is left with an interviewer, you really have no idea that happens behind the closed door.  When an interviewer is not prepared, it is obvious to the candidate. That sends a signal that ...

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Glassdoor Helps Job Candidates Ready for Interviews at Specific Companies

Posted by • April 27th, 2009 • 2 Comments

You may have noticed that we’ve just updated our site with a new tab – “Interviews” – that includes a new section for:  Job Interview Questions and Reviews to help those job hunting get a leg-up in today’s hyper-competitive market. (see official press release).  We know our community members already use Glassdoor to help research companies and compensation and adding a specific section on job interviews is the logical next move – and especially timely given the market. 

To get here, we spent a considerable amount of time talking to employees, employers and current job seekers, and built Glassdoor Interviews to address the needs of today’s candidates in today’s competitive market. Over the last few weeks thousands of Glassdoor.com community members have chimed in with their own interview experiences during the invite-only beta period.  

To date, we have collected about 2,000 job interview reviews for 1,000 companies in 40 countries. And, as of today, anyone can contribute a review of their own, searching job interviews by job title, company and even location – all for free. Glassdoor.com’s existing “give-to-get” model and community guidelines apply to the new interview section.  If you do not currently have a user account, you’ll need to complete either a ...

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Interview Do’s and Don’ts: A Round Up

Posted by • April 24th, 2009 • 1 Comment

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GM Making Big Cuts to Avoid Bankruptcy

Posted by • April 22nd, 2009 • 1 Comment

General Motors Corp., trying to avoid a U.S.-backed bankruptcy on June 1, may close plants and scrap models as much as four years sooner than planned to lower its break-even point. According to Bloomberg, the cuts could mean GM would be profitable in a U.S. market with sales of as few as 10 million autos. The annual sales rate was 9.9 million in March, after GM said Feb. 17 its break-even target was at 11.5 million to 12 million.

The new CEO announced to employees via email Monday that it will cut about 1,600 salaried workers this week – which is part of a previously announced plan. These planned jobs cuts are expected to take place throughout this week.   And while we’re sure employees are nervous about whether they get to stay or have to go, we’re still getting some insights from them as to what other quick actions can take place to hopefully keep the company afloat. Below are some suggestions that CEO Fritz Henderson can take into account as he weighs some tough decisions:

“Remove your level 8′s if they have been in their positions for more than 10 years!” -Engineer (Warren, MI)

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Employers Listen Up: Communication is like cash…

Posted by • April 22nd, 2009 • Leave a comment

….you can never have enough.  This was told to me recently by an executive and nothing could be truer, especially right now.  In times of turmoil and trouble the best thing employers can do is to communicate.  Athletic coaches know it.  That is why sports have timeouts.  Timeouts give the coach a chance to try and quarantine the noise, sit the team down for a few seconds or minutes in an effort to regroup.  Although sports’ timeouts are limited, they are used strategically and as such are thought of as precious.  But in business, we tend to miss all the signs signaling a need for a timeout.  The momentum changes but we let it get past us before we start communicating.  Some of the ways companies can spend some of that communication currency are offered below:

Get transparent. Everything you say or do is going to get written or talked about outside of the company anyway so you might as well get as transparent as you can with your people and team.  That means communication before and after decisions with insight as to “why” they occurred.  Do this early and often.

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Oracle to Buy Sun: Larry Ellison to become next Steve Jobs?

Posted by • April 20th, 2009 • 3 Comments

Oracle, based in Redwood City, Calif., announced Monday it had agreed to buy Sun for $9.50 a share in cash, or about $7.4 billion. The deal comes after talks between Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun and IBM Corp. came to a halt.

According to Forbes, the deal also represents a bold move by Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison. And to add on to the story, TechCrunch notes that Larry Ellison has always wanted to be the Steve Jobs of the enterprise IT industry. And with this morning’s announcement, it seems as though he is making a big step toward making Oracle more of a soup-to-nuts provider of enterprise technology.

So how close is Larry Ellison to becoming the next Steve Jobs? According to their respective employees, these two tech giants vary quite widely in terms of their approval rating. Apple‘s Steve Job’s holds a 27 percentage point higher rating that Oracle’s Larry Ellison. In addition, we find that 12% of Oracle employees actually disapprove of the way Ellison manages the company compared to just 2% of Apple employees who disapprove of Jobs.

Glassdoor Report: Apple & Oracle Comparison

Company
CEO Name
CEO Rating
Company Rating

Apple
Steve Jobs
91%
Satisfied (3.8)

Oracle
Larry Ellison
64%
Neutral (3.2)

So what can Larry Ellison do to improve? Below is ...

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Stuck: Handling a Relocation in this Economy

Posted by • April 17th, 2009 • 7 Comments

Recent research by the Pew Foundation revealed that nearly 50% of Americans live somewhere they wish they didn’t.  The American way has always been to be able to move from city to city and in many cases it was our jobs that relocated us across the country.  And many agreed to move to less-than ideal cities, as we figured we could live anywhere or a few years, knowing that there would be another move in our future anyway. If we played our cards right we would end up in a regional office or headquarters, which in most cases were located in attractive cities or towns.

It was a big game of musical chairs and for lots of people it was a great way to see the country on someone else’s dime as it related to purchase and sale of a home.  Over the past 15 years this worked, as there was no losing out on home equity.  But, as we know, all good things must come to an end. The music has stopped and nearly half of America may be living someplace they don’t like and aren’t able to make a change any time soon.  For anyone who could be transferred ...

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Layoffs at Cisco: 6,500 Jobs Expected to be Cut

Posted by • April 15th, 2009 • 9 Comments

A new report by J.P. Morgan announced that Cisco could be laying-off as much as 10% of their staff in the near future.  This would amount to more than 6,500 employees in total, and would clearly make a significant impact on the company and further impact the tech industry.  It would, however, save Cisco nearly $900 million dollars a year. 

When asked specifically about this possibility, a spokesperson for the company noted that they discussed in February eliminating up-to 2,000 jobs at some point, but that this would not “represent a broad-scale layoff in our workforce.”  What ultimately happens in terms of lay-offs for the company remains to be seen.

As we’ve done with other companies, we took a look at reviews for Cisco from the past three months, and found that employee sentiment remains neutral toward the company and the CEO and that concern over layoffs seems to be mentioned rarely among Cisco company reviews submitted by employees.

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Glassdoor.com: Winner of WorldBlu Most Democratic Workplace

Posted by • April 14th, 2009 • 6 Comments

The WorldBlu organization announced today the 40 most democratic workplaces, a list of organizations whose workplaces best exemplify the practice of ten democratic principles, such as transparency, dialogue and listening, integrity, accountability and choice on a leadership, individual, and systems and processes level. Glassdoor.com is honored to be among the list of winners.

“Nothing has proven the need for a new model of business as definitively as the current economic crisis,” says WorldBlu Founder and President, Traci Fenton. “The call for transparent, accountable, and decentralized companies is greater than ever, and in the midst of all the economic turmoil these organizations are a bright spot and a reason for hope.”

The WorldBlu Search for the Most Democratic WorkplacesTM is a global search that seeks to identify organizations in the for-profit, non-profit or government sectors practicing organizational democracy.

“Democratic organizations operate on the principles of freedom rather than fear and control,” explains Fenton. “Democratic companies understand that the future of business is less about pomp and more about participation, less about titles and more about meaning, and less about fiefdoms and more about being flat in order to be competitive in this new, democratic age.”

On behalf of the Glassdoor team, we would also like ...

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