Facebook Tops Glassdoor's List of Places to Work
Engineers aren't just flocking to Facebook for a potential blockbuster IPO payout — apparently the social network is also a great place to work. Glassdoor.com announced that Facebook is debuting at the top of its third-annual list …
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook closes out a busy December 2010 stretch — the Hacker Cup programming contest announced on December 9, a redesigned profile rolling out days earlier, and a rumored lease on two floors at 335 Madison Avenue in New York's advertising district — by debuting at the top of Glassdoor.com's third annual best places to work ranking, based on employee reviews.
The ranking lands while the company is reportedly tracking toward about $2 billion in sales this year and engineers are reportedly drawn by the prospect of an IPO payout — making the distinction that employees rate it a great workplace independent of equity upside a meaningful signal in Silicon Valley's contest for scarce engineering talent.
First-order effects
- Facebook gains a recruiting asset it doesn't have to pay for: a verified employee-voted No. 1 workplace ranking it can cite against Google and every other Valley suitor competing for the same engineers.
Second-order effects
- Rivals now have to counter a rival whose pitch combines culture credentials with rumored pre-IPO equity upside, pushing competitors to compete harder on retention, perks, and their own Glassdoor scores.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, employee-review rankings like Glassdoor's become a standing scoreboard in tech's talent war, and fast-growing private companies lean on workplace reputation to recruit ahead of public offerings rather than relying on cash compensation alone.
The trend: Tech's talent competition is shifting toward employee-satisfaction rankings as a public battleground, with pre-IPO companies like Facebook converting workplace reputation into a recruiting edge.