Glossdoor

Inspiration

As college students actively searching for jobs, we often browse through companies and jobs on websites such as Glassdoor and Indeed. However, we realized that the company reviews found on these websites don’t reflect work cultures or interactions experienced by underrepresented demographics. Particularly, LGBTQ+ individuals face more challenges in the workforce compared to their peers. Studies show that 22% of LGBTQ+ employees receive less promotion as their counterparts, and up to half of LGBTQ+ workers stay in the closet in the office. We were inspired to create a website that gives marginalized people a place to share their authentic experiences in their workplace, and in turn, help others to gain insights into these companies.

What it does

Glossdoor is a platform that allows people to find the dream company they’ve been looking for. Built for LGBTQ+, people of color, and all marganilized groups, the company ratings are based on the values of what our audience really cares about, such as inclusivity, diversity, and equality. On Glossdoor, an individual from a minority group can easily find reviews written by people of a similar background, which can help them better gauge if the company is right for them. Glossdoor also lists a specific company's existing DEI programs and efforts, making information more accessible. Additionally, Glossdoor records the critiques of current employees for their company and posts the most popular ones in a company “wishlist”, in an effort to urge the company for action.

How we built it

Our project used the MERN stack — MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, Node.js.

We used React for the front-end web development environment. On the backend, we used a Node.js runtime with Express.js to set up a server to handle business logic and communicate with our database. For our database, we used MongoDB to manage data for our users and companies, using Atlas to host a database cluster remotely in the MongoDB cloud.

Challenges we ran into

MongoDB management We have a lottt of data fields that have complex relationships between them (users, reviews, companies, tags, etc), but we managed to conform to good data management practices!
Filter feature We were stuck on this for a long time because the React state is tricky to track when we are filtering and jumping to a different page. Then we came up with this genius idea of using the to jump to a specific URL endpoint, which solves the problem perfectly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We made an (almost) fully functional website, which is a product we have envisioned and we are excited to see it come to life! For programming, we successfully established an ecosystem that effectively manages information and data flow. We also incorporated many features into our page. Particularly, the filtering algorithm is implemented so that the user can easily filter for criteria that are the most important to them. For the design, we thoughtfully designed metrics that both quantitatively and qualitatively present a company’s outlook on diversity and inclusion. We are also proud of how the UI and frontend come together in the end, making our web pages look aesthetic.

What we learned

We learned the power of collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork. Bringing together individuals with diverse skill sets, from developers to designers, allowed us to create a more comprehensive solution. The hackathon also emphasized the importance of user-centric design and feedback. Engaging with potential users during the event enabled us to better understand their needs and preferences, leading to enhancements in our platform's usability and overall user experience. Additionally, the time constraints of the hackathon taught us the importance of prioritization and efficient project management. We learned to focus on the most impactful features and functionalities, ensuring that our efforts aligned with the core objectives of Glossdoor.