Glassdoor Adds Benefits Info

IT Salary: 10 Ways To Get A Raise

While salary is important, there's a lot more to consider before you accept a job offer. Does the company provide health and dental insurance? A 401(k) plan? What's its vacation policy?

Jobs and career site Glassdoor launched a new feature this week called Benefits Reviews, which gives job seekers insight into companies' perks based on crowdsourced information from current and former employees. Glassdoor says it hopes this information will help people find the best company fit based on their needs.

"Job seekers are already evaluating and comparing job offers, but with little information on what a benefits package really entails or whether it meets the need of employees," said Allyson Willoughby, SVP of people at Glassdoor. "Benefits and perks carry both personal and monetary value and impact an employee's satisfaction with their company. By unlocking information about benefits from those in the know, we believe it'll also lead to improved recruitment and employee retention rates."

[How does your job stack up? Read IT Salaries: 8 Cold Hard Facts.]

You can submit benefit information about your employer anonymously through an online survey. The questionnaire asks for the best and worst thing about your company's benefit package, then lists more than 50 benefits. You can mark each one as Yes, No, or Not sure.

Glassdoor's survey covers health and wellness benefits such as dental and vision insurance, financial and retirement perks like 401(k) and pension plans, family and parenting benefits such as maternity and paternity leave, vacation and sabbaticals, professional support such as tuition assistance and training, perks and discounts such as free lunches or a company car, and whether your office is dog friendly.

While former and current employees can rate a company's benefits, Glassdoor encourages employers to do the same through its Glassdoor Employer Profile. Here, employers can share details about what their benefits package includes and verify which ones their company does and doesn't offer.

The new feature has been in private beta for the last few weeks, so it's not yet easy to fully compare one company's benefits to another's. During the beta test, Glassdoor said it collected more than 4,000 anonymous benefit reviews from employees at a variety of companies.

For example, a product engineer at Facebook commented about the company's on-campus amenities, such as the in-house gym, music room, wood shop, bicycles, and even a climbing wall. At Google, employees lauded the free food and compensation packages, but said that work-life balance is difficult to maintain.

In addition to the newly launched benefits section, Glassdoor also collects information on companies' salaries, which you can browse by title and city; the interview process, including whether the interview experience was positive and its difficulty; plus jobs the company is hiring for.

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