How to Respond to Glassdoor Reviews (With Examples)

To respond to Glassdoor reviews, claim your free employer profile, then reply as an official company representative: thank the reviewer, acknowledge the specific points they raised, explain briefly what you’re doing about any fair criticism, and invite continued conversation without trying to identify them. Your audience is the candidate reading the exchange later, so keep replies calm, specific and short.

Glassdoor is where many job seekers go to find out what working for you is really like. How you respond tells them almost as much as the reviews themselves.

Why candidates read Glassdoor, and why replies matter

A job ad describes the role you want to fill. Glassdoor shows how people who did similar jobs felt about it: management, workload, pay, interviews, and whether the company follows through on what it promises. Candidates often read it before applying, before an interview, and again before accepting an offer.

They also read how the company handles criticism. A profile full of unanswered negative reviews suggests leadership isn’t listening. Thoughtful replies, especially ones that describe real changes, suggest the opposite. You can’t control what people write, but you can control whether the company’s voice appears next to it.

Step 1: Claim your free employer profile

Glassdoor lets employers create a free employer account to manage the company profile and respond to reviews as an official representative. In practice:

1. Sign in to Glassdoor with your work email address. Glassdoor uses it to connect you to the company.
2. Request an employer account for your company. Glassdoor’s Trust and Safety team reviews employer account applications before approving them, which can take a couple of business days.
3. Complete the profile. Add an accurate description, benefits, photos and company updates, so candidates see more than reviews.
4. Decide who replies. Pick one or two people, usually in HR or people operations, with a senior leader available for sensitive reviews. Each employer response shows the date and the responder’s job title.

Paid Glassdoor products add branding and analytics features, but you don’t need them to respond to reviews.

Step 2: Reply with a simple structure

1. Thank them for taking the time. It’s a small thing, but it sets the tone and signals you welcome feedback.
2. Acknowledge the specific points. Refer to what they said about, say, on-call scheduling or promotion criteria. Generic replies read as if nobody read the review.
3. Share what’s changing, if anything is. Concrete changes are the most persuasive thing you can write. If nothing is changing, explain the reasoning briefly and respectfully.
4. Offer a channel, not a hunt. Point to a general route such as your HR team or an anonymous feedback channel, rather than asking the reviewer to identify themselves.

Keep it to a short paragraph. The principles in our guide on responding to negative reviews apply here too, with one big difference: employee reviews are anonymous and often involve people you still work with, so avoid anything that could look like you know who wrote it.

Example responses you can adapt

These are illustrative templates. Change the details every time; candidates notice copy-and-paste replies quickly.

Fair criticism about management or workload

Thank you for taking the time to share this. You’re right that the support team was stretched through the spring, and we heard similar feedback in our last engagement survey. We’ve since added two roles to the team and moved to a rotating weekend schedule. If you’d like to share more, our People team reads every message sent through our anonymous feedback form. Dana, Head of People

A mixed review with pros and cons

Thanks for the balanced review. We’re glad the training program and the team culture stood out for you. We also hear you on career paths being unclear, and we’re publishing promotion criteria for every role this quarter so expectations are the same across teams. Marcus, VP of Operations

A review that contains inaccuracies

We appreciate the feedback and are sorry this was your experience. For candidates reading this, we want to clarify one point: all full-time roles include paid parental leave, which is set out in our benefits guide. We’d welcome a conversation about the other points you raised; our HR team is available to anyone who wants to talk. Priya, HR Director

A negative interview review

Thank you for the feedback on your interview. You’re right that waiting three weeks without an update isn’t acceptable, and we’re sorry. We’ve set a new standard that every candidate hears from us within five business days of each stage. We wish you the best in your search. Luis, Talent Acquisition Lead

A positive review

Thank you for this. It’s great to hear the mentoring program made a difference in your first year, and we’ll share your comments with the team who run it. Sarah, Chief People Officer

What Glassdoor removes, and what it doesn’t

Glassdoor moderates reviews against its Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, and employers can flag a review they believe breaks them. Based on Glassdoor’s published guidelines, reviews that are more likely to be removed include those that:

• Negatively single out an individual employee by name or in enough detail to identify them. Glassdoor generally allows reviews to mention only the most senior leaders, such as C-level executives, along with teams and departments.
• Reveal confidential company information, such as customer lists, source code, detailed financials or strategic plans.
• Contain threats, hate speech or other content its guidelines prohibit.
• Appear to have been incentivized or coerced. Glassdoor says it removes reviews where there is evidence of either.

Genuine criticism, however harsh, generally stays. “Leadership is disorganized and pay is below market” is an opinion Glassdoor exists to publish. Glassdoor also doesn’t share specific reasons for removing a review, because doing so could compromise the reviewer’s anonymity.

A worked example: a regional employer with a run of critical reviews

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real client. A logistics company with several warehouses notices five critical reviews in two months, all mentioning mandatory overtime at one site. One review also names a shift supervisor and describes her as incompetent.

1. The HR director claims the employer profile and completes it with benefits and photos from all sites.
2. She flags the review that names the supervisor, citing the guideline against singling out non-executive employees. The rest of that review, about overtime, is fair comment.
3. She replies to each overtime review individually, acknowledging the pattern and explaining that the site is hiring additional staff and moving to overtime by sign-up. No two replies are identical.
4. Leadership resists the urge to find out who posted. Instead, the site manager holds an open meeting about scheduling, and HR runs an anonymous internal survey.

Glassdoor may or may not remove the flagged review; that’s its decision. What changes most is what candidates see: a problem named, a response from a named HR director, and a concrete fix.

Encouraging honest reviews from current employees

A handful of reviews from people who left unhappily can dominate a thin profile. The fix is a broader, more representative picture, gathered in a way Glassdoor allows.

• Ask everyone, not just the happiest. Glassdoor’s own advice to employers is to ask broadly. Asking only enthusiastic employees produces a curated profile that candidates can spot and distrust.
• Don’t offer anything in return. Glassdoor doesn’t allow incentives for reviews, such as gift cards, bonuses or extra time off, and says it removes reviews where there’s evidence of incentives or coercion. Offering incentives conditioned on positive sentiment is also prohibited under the FTC’s 2024 rule on reviews.
• Don’t watch over their shoulder. Glassdoor says employers shouldn’t ask employees to show them reviews, require proof they’ve posted, or have them write reviews in the office or on company equipment.
• Time the ask sensibly. A neutral reminder after a milestone, such as a work anniversary or the end of onboarding, works better than a company-wide push the week after a layoff.

Something like: “If you’d like to share your experience of working here on Glassdoor, good or bad, we’d value it. It’s anonymous and entirely optional.”

Common mistakes

• Arguing with former employees in public. Candidates side with the employee far more often than the employer in a public back-and-forth.
• Revealing details about the reviewer’s employment. Performance issues, disciplinary history or reasons for leaving should never appear in a reply.
• Replying only to positive reviews. It looks like you’re ignoring the criticism, which is exactly what candidates are trying to assess.
• Asking managers to “encourage” their teams toward five stars. Pressure tied to sentiment breaks Glassdoor’s rules and tends to show up in the reviews themselves.

Tracking your employer reputation over time

Glassdoor is one signal among several: Indeed company reviews, LinkedIn, Reddit threads and news coverage also shape how candidates see you. It helps to review rating trends and recurring themes each quarter, not just react to individual reviews. Our guide on how to measure online reputation covers which metrics are worth tracking. If you want alerts when new reviews or mentions appear, our online reputation monitoring service handles that, and our review management service can take on drafting replies for your team to approve.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a negative Glassdoor review removed?

Only if it breaks Glassdoor’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Use, for example by naming a non-executive employee, revealing confidential information, or showing signs of incentives or coercion. You can flag it, and Glassdoor decides. Genuine criticism generally stays up.

Does it cost anything to respond to Glassdoor reviews?

No. Glassdoor offers a free employer account that lets you manage your profile and post official responses. Paid products add branding and analytics features but aren’t needed for replying.

Can Glassdoor tell me who wrote a review?

Glassdoor protects reviewer anonymity and declines requests to reveal identities. Trying to work out who wrote a review, and acting on it, can expose your company to legal risk; talk to an employment lawyer if a review raises a genuine legal issue.

Should we respond to every Glassdoor review?

Aim to reply to every negative or mixed review and to detailed positive ones. Candidates look for patterns, and consistent, specific replies show that leadership reads and acts on feedback.

Can we ask employees to write Glassdoor reviews?

Yes, if you ask everyone, don’t offer any reward, and don’t pressure anyone or check whether they posted. Glassdoor removes reviews where there’s evidence of incentives or coercion.