5 Reasons Reviewing Your Company is the Best Career Move You Can Make

By Fairygodboss via Fairygodboss

These days, it seems like you can review everything online, from restaurants to hotels to Amazon purchases. If you’re a job seeker, you can even review jobs and interview experiences and learn about salaries online. But in Georgene Huang’s experience, existing job review sites weren’t of much help.

Today the CEO and co-founder of leading women’s career platform Fairygodboss, Huang had turned to the internet for help after she was fired from an executive-level position while two months pregnant. She had specific questions about companies that she didn’t feel comfortable voicing in interviews — like, is work-life balance a reality here? Are women paid and promoted fairly? What’s the maternity leave policy? Huang had assumed she’d be able to find these answers online — and was shocked by the lack of information on existing job review sites that was relevant to female job seekers. So, she started her own site.

Since Huang founded Fairygodboss — the only crowdsourced database of company reviews for women, by women — tens of thousands of women have used it to anonymously share their job experiences. In their reviews, women divulge everything from salaries to culture to the quality of managers at their company, amounting to what is truly a treasure trove of information for women in the workforce.

If you’ve never reviewed your employer before, the thought of doing so may seem inherently risky. After all, there’s no shortage of stories about backlash and professional repercussions faced by those who speak up — like the 75% of respondents in one study who said they’d faced retaliation for reporting workplace mistreatment. Even if you love your job, it can oftentimes still feel safer or more “professional” to keep your opinions about your employer — particularly info on how the company tends to pay and promote employees — close to you.

What that results in, however, is a lack of transparency that keeps women in the dark about the career information they need most. By leaving a free review of your employer on Fairygodboss, you’re helping shine a light on what women in the workplace really experience — the good, and the bad. Still not sure what you stand to gain by leaving a review? Well, for starters…

1. Our company reviews are totally anonymous.

Share your thoughts about what your employer does right for women — and where they need to improve — without putting yourself at any risk for retaliation. When you leave a review on Fairygodboss, we promise to never share your identity, making our community a place of safe, protected transparency.

2. Leaving a review helps empower other women.

If recent events around working women’s issues have shown us anything, it’s that we truly are stronger when we stand together and support each other’s voices. By leaving a review, you’re helping equip the million women who use our site each month with the information they need to make informed, empowered decisions about their careers.

What information about your employer do you wish someone had told you before you started? Is the maternity leave policy reasonable? Are women paid and promoted fairly? What’s the overall culture toward women like, and are you encouraged to achieve work-life balance? Now’s your opportunity to pay it forward by cluing other women in.

3. But you’re not just helping others — you’re also empowering yourself.

When you leave a review of your employer on Fairygodboss, you instantly unlock free access to tens of thousands of other women’s reviews. Not only that, but you’ll also have access to the Fairygodboss Salary Database,  Maternity Leave Database, and Work-Life Balance Database, so you can make easy comparisons.

4. You can create real change in your workplace.

Many companies truly want to cultivate a diverse, enriched environment where women can do their best work, but they aren’t sure of where to start. By leaving a review, you’re not only providing other women with valuable intel — you’re also signaling to the company itself (in a safe, anonymous way!) what they need to change if they want women to be happy working there.

5. And, if it comes down to it, you can also use us to find a new job.

Don’t care to stick around to see if things improve for women at your company? Fairygodboss is also a job search platform. Check out what women have to say about working at a company, and if you’re impressed, click over to see what positions they have open — and know that you’re doing so from an informed, empowered place.

By leaving a free, anonymous review of your employer, there’s nothing you stand to lose.

A version of this post previously appeared on Fairygodboss, a leading career community that helps women get the inside scoop on pay, corporate culture, benefits, and work flexibility. Founded in 2015, Fairygodboss offers company ratings, job listings, discussion boards, and career advice.