Glassdoor Revelations: What Really Drives Satisfaction in High-Paying Careers

Consulting, finance and tech firms are “people” businesses, getting their value from the talent they hire. These industries fiercely compete (often against each other) for top candidates, with recruitment efforts often starting as early as freshman year of college. The competition has intensified to the point where many firms are offering close to $200k in total compensation for fresh grads. However, in this high-stakes talent war, an important question emerges: can companies attract the best and brightest with more than just hefty paychecks?

Purpose of Analysis

Though typically used to analyze customer data, we used sentiment analysis to analyze thousands of Glassdoor entries to see what employees across tech, consulting and finance care most about. These jobs are often characterized by how lucrative they are, however, studies find that people are not driven by rewards. Rather, they’re actually driven by other values such as meaningfulness, purpose and learning. What lessons can firms learn from sentiment analysis about attracting the best talent?

The Analysis

To get a grasp of general sentiment across each industry we analyzed Glassdoor reviews for the 3 largest companies in consulting, finance and tech:

• Consulting: McKinsey, Bain and BCG
• Finance: JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs
• Tech: Microsoft, Apple and Google

Across the board, there is surprisingly relatively little variation with how happy employees are. Microsoft takes the lead with 86% positive feedback and Goldman Sachs rounds out the bottom with 76% positive feedback.

Amongst positive reviews culture was the #1 most mentioned attribute. Growth typically ranked second and there were surprisingly few mentions of pay.

Interestingly, amongst negative reviews culture also showed up quite often. Other common complaints included work life balance, hours, stress and bureaucracy.

Meaningfulness of Results

Lesson #1: Culture Is Paramount: Across all 3 industries culture is the most frequently mentioned attribute in both positive and negative reviews. Even though it seems like companies generally do a good job in fostering a positive culture, a large chunk of employees seem to feel excluded. Given how important this aspect is, firms should prioritize creating an inclusive culture that speaks to a broader range of employees.

Lesson #2: Pay Isn’t Everything: Surprisingly, there is little mention of pay among the top factors mentioned in positive reviews. This makes sense given research suggests that  beyond a certain point, additional compensation doesn’t significantly increase job satisfaction or performance.

Lesson #3: Pros and Cons Differ By Industry: Though overall job satisfaction is relatively consistent across all industries, there are some notable differences in the most mentioned attributes with a clear divide separating banking/consulting with tech.

Banking/Consulting:

• Positive: Strong growth and career potential
• Negative: Long hours and poor work life balance

Tech

• Positive: Good work life balance
• Negative: Bureaucracy

This contrast in sentiment is not only helpful to job seekers thinking about entering these industries but also offers good insights to what companies can do to woo candidates.