STATEMENT ON FALSE SALARY INFORMATION POSTED ON GLASSDOOR.COM

It’s difficult to find information on the internet that you can trust. This can be personally frustrating if you are scouring employment and resume posting sites as part of a search for a job or career advancement. If you run a small business that depends on hiring motivated and well qualified professionals it can be equally frustrating and damaging. So when we found out that a website called Glassdoor.com is presenting information about Wheeler & Gray that is factually incorrect we acted quickly to get that information changed.

Glassdoor.com is posting a salary for a “Civil Engineer” at Wheeler & Gray that is about 30% lower than the salary wepay for someone at the lower end of a Civil Engineer position. The salary shown on Glassdoor.com is what a junior engineer with a few years of experience makes at Wheeler & Gray.

Our first thought was that Glassdoor.com did not know or understand that the title of “Civil Engineer” is legally protected in California. A person who uses the title of Civil Engineer must be licensed by the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors as a Civil Engineer. That person must have met all of the prerequisites, such as education and passing of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, and then must have passed the multiple parts of the California exam, to legally use the title of Civil Engineer. Here’s the applicable state law:

PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS ACT
(Business and Professions Code §§ 6700 – 6799)
CHAPTER 7. PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS
Article 1. General Provisions

6732. Use of seal, stamp, or title by unlicensed persons; titles restricted for use by licensed persons It is unlawful for anyone other than a professional engineer licensed under this chapter to stamp or seal any plans, specifications, plats, reports, or other documents with the seal or stamp  10 2017 Professional Engineers Act of a professional engineer, or in any manner, use the title “professional engineer,” “licensed engineer,” “registered engineer,” or “consulting engineer,” or any of the following branch titles: “agricultural engineer,” “chemical engineer,” “civil engineer,” “control system engineer,” “electrical engineer,” “fire protection engineer,” “industrial engineer,” “mechanical engineer,” “metallurgical engineer,” “nuclear engineer,” “petroleum engineer,” or “traffic engineer,” or any combination of these words and phrases or abbreviations thereof unless licensed under this chapter.

We explained to Glassdoor.com that no one who works at Wheeler & Gray and meets this requirement makes the salary they published. Glassdoor.com didn’t care. They responded with drivel about “community standards,” transparency and something about protecting the anonymity of the person who posted. The fact that their web site posted false information did not concern them in the least.

If you use Glassdoor.com, or any other similar website, you should ask some serious questions, such as, do they want accurate information on their site? Or, under what circumstances would they voluntarily correct their website? Do they benefit, or more pertinently, can they benefit from publishing false information? What does it mean when they say they’re concerned about transparency?

We can only conclude from their refusal to correct the information on their website that they are not concerned about the accuracy of the website. We assume that because Glassdoor.com accepts recruiting advertisements from employers that the information provided by those employers is posted as the employers provide it. In other words, if we pay Glassdoor.com will they correct the information on their website? For the record, we use Careerbuilder to advertise for open positions. We have used other reputable entities to recruit. We do not use Glassdoor.com. And, of course, if they are paid by an employer to advertise job openings, they would like that employer to be seen more favorably by a qualified job seeker than an employer who does not pay Glassdoor.com, which creates an incentive to leave incorrect information on their website about employers who do no pay them. (Not coindicentally, Glassdoor.com publishes job openings from a firm in Pasadena against whom Wheeler & Gray competes directly for professionals.) Of course, we’re not saying that’s what they do, but fraud does not require that one actually benefit from the fraud. It requires only that one engage in deception intended to result in gain.