Name: Fishbowl: Professional Network
Rating: 4.59492 (20485 reviews)

User Reviews for Fishbowl: Professional Network

4.59 out of 5

20.5K Ratings

3 years ago, Redefine Manliness

Love the app, lacks user friendliness, no transparency on getting reported

I absolutely love the app and the concept. Gives out a lot of information which you can’t get otherwise. My only struggle has been the font size and slow performance. Hangs at least thrice a day. But most importantly, it’s too small of a font to type and keep reading long articles. I moved to iPad but the font remains the same. You should come out with a web version for better readability and better engagement of the audience. Just my two cents. Update: I have major concerns with their reporting function. There is no transparency and you never know what you get reported for. They just revoke your access for messaging which is a bummer. I would appreciate if the team is transparent on red flags and warns early than revoking the access without any notice. Update - the customer support is not responsive and doesn’t give valid and transparent answers. After providing so much information to people, it’s practically useless if you can’t make full use of it. The app can do much better.

4 years ago, Bye Fishbowl

Moderation Needs Significant Improvement

I don’t particularly WANT to write a poor review for Fishbowl because I’ve historically enjoyed this app and think it’s generally a decent social media platform for professionals working in similar functions to me. That said, I feel I have to point out how poorly automated and moderated this app is. First, the automation. Every profile-related thing you do goes under manual review. You want to join Fishbowl by submitting your profile? Manual review. You want to change your title? Manual review. Almost every process that seems like it should be automated in some form for an app of Fishbowl’s size must pass through the moderation team. The moderation team is not quick to respond, either. I found I would wait days or weeks before finally contacting support to streamline the process. I’ve seen complaints of even longer waits posted to Reddit. Second, the moderation. I noticed a comment below about being automatically banned or shadowbanned on Fishbowl as a result of less than a handful of reports, and have to echo this as a major issue of the app. The biggest problem at this point is some toxic users are aware of how to game this system, and actively abuse it. This results in a cycle of normal, friendly users being shadowbanned for fighting back against trolls/bullies and innocuous posts being removed.

5 years ago, Helpful Fish 2019

The Professionals Reddit!

The perfect place to learn anonymously! *Warning Longwinded review ahead Do you have a question you aren’t comfortable asking your team mates? Do you want to help others learn more about your firm? Do you just want to look at memes geared towards a niche group? Do any of the questions sound like you? Well you are in the right place, ask and interact anonymously or share your entire profile for a different experience completely. I was a little hesitant to join at first but once I joined the community my fears melted away. I can say this is the best resource to quickly interact with intelligent and knowledgeable professionals around any topic you can imagine. Like with most apps of this nature you will encounter trolls but I’d say the 80-20 rule definitely applies here with the 80 being the individuals who truly want to help. I have noticed myself using this app more often than reddit and LinkedIn now, mostly as a lurker! So what are you waiting for join us here in the fishbowl! who knows we may interact with each other, and I hope we do!

3 years ago, Skydivesre

Wish I had known about this sooner

We all know the person (if not are the person) that won’t ask the question because they’re afraid of being laughed at or think they should already know the answer. So many people have had the job they want to know more about but don’t want their boss / coworker to find out they’re poking around because of the rumor mill that starts. Or the company that you had a terrible experience at but when someone asks for opinions on working for that company you feel pressured to lie or avoid answering so it can’t come back that you said anything negative. This app solves it all. Honest business people asking honest questions and giving honest answers to help one another. Plus the live chats with C suite execs and experts in different fields. This app is for anyone that is trying to learn how to career change, fulfill their career goals or just have a place to ask the questions you’re afraid to ask since you don’t have to share your identity. Just wish I knew about it sooner and that it had been available when I first entered the marketplace.

3 years ago, _pulliam_

I don’t usually write reviews

...but Fishbowl deserves the five stars. This app is amazing. It actually is a place where down to earth professionals share and collaborate. A couple of the live talks I’ve attended are in my top ten ‘talks’ including whatever you can find online — and the fact that you can ask really talented and accomplished people questions conversationally is awesome. I’ve had great conversations, learned things applicable to my day to day at work, and have received relevant and actionable advice on things from advancing my career and building a company, to strategy and tactics. Honestly, the only critiques I have are for them to add features to the live talks. Maybe allow reactions and record it. Though the fact that you can’t do those things might be what makes them flow so well, it’s truly and thoughtfully moderated. And it makes the experience unique and unrepeatable. Great draws. Okay, I’ve raved so much about Fishbowl I think I need to tell you: I don’t work for the company nor do I know anyone who does. I found the app randomly, I think it was in an article in the App Store. Random. Good search/marketing maybe. Either way, so glad I found it.

2 years ago, RoBPrO*€

Apparently only for the rich

Won’t let me verify account, because I don’t have a work email address. I linked fb and li accounts, and still won’t verify me. I have used Glassdoor for years, yet can’t get verified on fishbowl. It pretty much just looks to be a business fb page, but you can’t use most of it unless you are verified. So what is it really even good for. They sent me an email saying I can be verified using Facebook or LinkedIn. Clearly they didn’t read that l already did that above. It also said it required all professionals to verify with a business email. Well I know many professionals that don’t have business emails so we must not count. I have been a professional welder, fabricator, lift truck operator, mechanical and electrical assembler, carpenter, and much more. Just because these companies just communicate with us essential workers, with our own email and not a business email, doesn’t make us any less important or professional. We make up probably over a third of all workers in the US and deserve just as good of work peer to peer job search opportunities as anyone.

5 years ago, Chilljamz

Good way to connect with other educators

I’m in the educator community and it’s been fun connecting with others across the country. It’s more welcoming than “teacher gram”. Sometimes networking and advice can be limited because education differs so much from state to state, but everyone in the community has a common ground. When it comes to topics like behavior, or work-life balance, those are universal. Some logistical things with the app bug me—like double tapping to add punctuation in a post will add a space between the final word and end mark. This doesn’t show until your post/comment is posted and as an English teacher that really bothers me. Characters in posts are limited—wish there were more! It’s also tedious to get back to the notifications screen after checking post updates. The back button will send you to the “bowl” instead of simply back to where you left off.

2 years ago, Nehdz

Its ok - needs a lot of upgrades

So I am new to fishbowl and I feel fishbowl itself is new and the more I use it the more value I find. So I see a lot of potential in the app and the endeavor itself. I hope my review reaches the developers, marketing and other teams: The app needs a lot of improvement - 1. Once I click on a single notification on my phone all other notifications vanish so I cannot access them anymore. Yes, I can access notifications inside the app but guess what? all the fishbowl lives don’t show up in the in-app notifications! This is basic and needs immediate app updates 2. There is no way to access fishbowl live events later, if you somehow find a good past even there is no way to have it on your past events list or save them for later reviewing anywhere in the app - only the very generalistic ones are available under past events (weekly round up etc) - and you know what I am talking about here Marketing 3. App needs greater visibility as there are not enough groups to have conversations or learn from Product Development 4. Oh and I don’t even want to start with access on the app. If one is unemployed you all make it incredibly difficult to access bowls, posts and contribute! There are so many ways to verify credibility, so kindly use alternate methods and let users use them

9 months ago, deeeseee3

Not Professional, Flawed Reporting, Questionable Reporting

This app parades itself as a app for professionals yet it has a group within the app where all people do is talk about their kinks and threads where married men confess to cheating on their spouses. The app makes you sign up with your email or LinkedIn profile, which doesn’t make me confident that my information won’t be shared - intentionally or unintentionally. I’d love to know how this free to use app makes money. If you’re not paying to use an app you likely are the product. The most negative feature of this app is the process for reviewing and reporting comments. Trolls can go through the app reporting anything and everything to get posts/comments removed. In the Women in Consulting bowl a group of women ganged up on me because I had the unpopular opinion that just because I’m a black woman doesn’t mean that I’m a victim of racism. I was told that the sooner I learn that racism affects me the better off me and my future children will be. This wasn’t just one comment, the majority opinion on the post was trying to convince me that I’m a victim. I was shocked by the hostility towards me for having this opinion. Eventually my comments were reported and removed despite me being respectful. My only flaw was not believing I’m a victim and sharing that opinion on a Fishbowl thread. The reporting and removing of comments has gotten to the point that I no longer post on the app.

2 years ago, besiendodnsns

Tricky App for Privacy

I downloaded the fishbowl app to understand pay in the market and I made my account anonymous because I wasn’t interested in commenting or writing a post. I just wanted to snoop. I made an anonymous user name for this purpose and used my personal email not my work email. Well somewhere along the few months I had the app, it somehow pulled in my first and last name and my workplace and updated my profile with this information. I never added this info myself, idk how it got in there. I’m really upset at this and deactivated my account. The only way to change it is to contact support which could take days! It’s a shame because it was a great app, but they seem greedy for user data. I simply wasn’t ready to share my identity in that app because I don’t know how my workplace feels about employees using it openly. I haven’t had these issues with the Blind app and I’ve been using it for over a year.

4 years ago, Ddom13

Great idea, poor execution

This app has a lot of great potential and content flowing through. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out there are tons of “spam banners” on this app who will just report tons of your normal/kind reviews and it will automatically ban people from the app. So the more active you are in the app and the more positive content you contribute the more likely you are to get banned from it. They are shooting themselves in the foot with this, they don’t have ANY real content moderation they just accept any “reported content” regardless of if the person reporting it is simply acting malicious by targeting kind users. Several colleagues of mine have said the same thing and have been banned. It ultimately encourages you to not contribute content and just observe ok the app. If fishbowl actually had good content moderation it would be a powerful enough app that I’d want to invest personally in it, but their priorities are elsewhere. Govern the “spam banners” or you’ll lose all the users who build content within your app’s walls.

8 months ago, Svetlanta

Astonishing Forum for Real Help, Real Connections

Join Fishbowl and plunge into the underwater bubbles of the real lives of professionals in your field m, in your city, in your realms of interest. Fishbowl forums in BigLaw brazenly smashed the First Rule of Fight Club and finally there are safe,” spaces, helpful people, who have empathy and advice. If you want to change careers or explore another, just apply to that bowl. You’ll be surprised how welcoming and relevant they are. Join the bowl for your city, or the city you’ll be moving to, or considering moving to. Get into the social scenes, cultures, housing options, make connections, make friends. Post or respond in the Bowls. It’s a paradigm changing space. Take the plunge!

3 years ago, ConnVA

Ridiculous Moderators

For some quick background, FB uses a three strikes policy with regard to content violations. First violation is a warning, second violation is a 72-hour suspension, and third violation is a lifetime ban. Violations can be triggered by someone flagging you or by the moderators identifying an issue (i.e., abusive language, negativity, marketing outside products, etc). The problem is that, when you get flagged, there is little or no vetting of whether the complaint is legitimate and no appeal process- the moderators just go ahead and book you for the violation. However, it’s becoming an increasingly poor kept secret that most of these violations are utterly ridiculous. For example, I’m on a 72-hour suspension for abuse for calling something (not someone) “dumb” and “good riddance”. There are hundreds or thousands of similar stories. Emailed asking to appeal the decision and heard zilch. Swim carefully, my friends, or just avoid this police state altogether.

10 months ago, irene215

Terrible app, don’t waste your time.

This app is AWFUL. It is NOT user friendly, at all, which is counterintuitive to its purpose. It ONLY caters to working professionals, NOT those like recent college graduates who are just staring out and currently exploring the professional job market. It autofills the company you work at without even giving you the option of filling it in yourself and can only be changed with the approval of the “Fishbowl Team” as if they are better equipped to determine where users work than the users themselves. You cannot connect your LinkedIn profile upon creating an account, as they need time to verify the validity of that as well, whereas other employment websites and apps let you connect your LinkedIn right away. The preliminary questions about your current industry and field are way too broad and don’t always reflect the professionals actual expertise. This app is a huge disappointment and needs a major overhaul ASAP.

5 years ago, useless update

Beware of the easily triggered woke users

Great app for anonymous sharing among others in your professional industry. But way too many people who present themselves as being woke AF who have zero tolerance for opinions that differ from their own. You will get reported for your dissent on a comment (that is positioned in an agree to disagree manner, and not personal insults) and only find out about it because your comment is magically nowhere to be found. This is especially true for anything political - even if the nature of the comment isn’t even in support of the supposed offending political view, but merely offering a ‘live and let live’ POV. It’s sad to me that the moderators are allowing other users to silence voices that differ from the popular opinion. We don’t need to worry about political fascism in our government when we’ve got totalitarian rules at play in private online communities.

3 years ago, Ryanbharvey

Fun to use, insightful, a little depressing at times

Overall, I am a fan. I think the network is solid and provides good insight. At its best, it is a source of information and insight from an authentic source. At its worst, it is a window into the sad realities of our industry. Luckily, all that is padded by a healthy dose of sarcasm. Being a contributor of the latter, my posts/replies can land wrong and become subjects of misinterpretation resulting in warnings, flags, or even banishment. While some have been warranted others have been unfairly misinterpreted without the option to dispute. What if a user is maliciously reporting someone? I don’t believe this to be the case in my instance. I may have still been in the wrong but it would be nice to have been able to dispute.

2 years ago, Mad dr 95

Another very biased platform

I was excited when this platform came out because I thought it would be a place to share open ideas with fellow teachers. Unfortunately it’s very biased and full of hate. Users who are very liberal or aloud time and again on post after post to personally attack anyone with a religious point of view or a conservative point of view. The attacks are often very personal and if you don’t agree with someone your post gets reported immediately even if there’s nothing offensive in it. There’s no appeals process so your post gets removed and you are warned. Meanwhile if you report personal attacks, often they are allowed to stand and if they’re liberal nothing happens to the post or the user. It just reached a point where I can’t even go on anymore without being personally attacked and then an innocuous post gets flagged and I’m suspended.

1 year ago, sshukla821

Fishbowl App a Joke

The app is a joke! I had signed up literally looking to be referred for jobs and to network with others, and either I get ghosted or people just put in comments hurting the chances of those like myself who are genuinely looking for a new job. On top of this, you cannot delete your comments or posts after a certain time. WHY??? Just let people delete their own comments! This app compares to plenty of fish for dating, but for business professionals and those who want to vent their company woes. I get that people want to vent on there, but what if companies start looking into Fishbowl and see what people post like they do for other social media? Is this something that Fishbowl considered? I cannot trust this app, and I highly do not recommend this app to anyone at all, and to the person who developed this joke of an app, I hope you fix the issues that I noted on here!

1 year ago, Yemzhnee

Praise

So I actually never leave reviews but I feel like this app deserves one. If you’re looking for a place to openly and freely ask your work related questions that you may not feel comfortable asking your coworkers, this is definitely the app for you. I found out so much information regarding a career field I am interested in within 48 hours of downloading the app. It is user friendly and so helpful. Great platform to connect and ask those not so easy questions to complete strangers. I’m absolutely enjoying myself. I would suggest joining multiple “bowls” the information is great.

5 years ago, ABN14!!

Horrible Moderation of Users

I’ve never left a review for an app in my life but here I am. The premise of this app is great and I really enjoy except the moderation of users is absolutely GARBAGE. If you are reported three times, you get permanently banned from the app. It doesn't matter what you say, if some clicks the report button, you get flagged and it's a strike against you. If someone doesn't like what you've said, they can go back and report every single comment of yours in a thread and you'll be permanently banned from the app. It's ridiculous. I'm not even talking about politics. If you have a differing of opinion, someone will game the report function and have you kicked off the app. The app also shadowbans. I was told by customer service. They blamed it on the algorithm but told me that their program will straight up make your comments invisible due to another user reporting you. This app really needs to get it together.

4 years ago, BEWARE: Cant DELETE Account.

You can't delete your account or posts

It was a cool app until I realized you can't delete your account and you can't delete your posts. SUPER SHADY. I tried to change my job title and while waiting approval from the app administrator, my profile has been switched so that everyone can see where I work and what I commented. The whole point is that it's supposed to be anonymous. Had I of known that trying to change my title would result in making my information public, I would have never tried to make the change. I've emailed twice for them to delete my account and I've heard nothing back. I'm very disturbed. I won't every use this app again. I wouldn't recommend this app for professionals because they are SHADY and do not make it clear that you can't delete your account at your leisure nor can you delete your posts. The lack of control of your account is extremely problematic.

2 years ago, JbushSHSU

You’re risking your job for what exactly?

I’ve seen ads all over Instagram for this app as a way to find out if you’re paid fairly. However to get a profile you need to literally state your real name and where you work and what your position is. It’s publicly available whatever you post unlike on Instagram/Twitter/Reddit where you can post privately or anonymously. Secondly, it’s pretty much Reddit without the anonymously made profiles. So think about that if you’re really tempted by the ads to find out info. Third, its full of consultants, young Lawyers, and IT professionals. If you’re outside the scope of those three professions, good luck getting them to understand your perspective as it’s M7, T14 or bust. Practically r/MBA or r/FinanceCareers on Reddit. Lastly, salary comparisons…… there are none. Again it’s full of consultants openly risking their lives asking people if they should leave their current firm for another place and what the offers are exactly. It’s not like glass door where you can just search the companies and the positions and filter as such. It’s just people looking to join the company nothing more. I’d advise making a throwaway on Reddit for the same exact info, don’t risk your job

2 years ago, GiGiBlkCarLivry

POCKETS OF HATEFUL CLICKS

I signed up for Fishbowl and went “fishing “ for individuals in the law and legal field to network with for special projects. Being a Business Coach and in Management, I thought it would be inviting to post inspirational and encouraging memes ( I discovered on LinkedIn ) to start conversations, and hopefully learn more about members on Fishbowl. THEY LYNCH MOB SAID I WAS CREATING SPAM 🤯 Yes, in the next moment, there were these clicks of presumably extremist white males who started a lynching campaign. OMG! I am telling you all the truth! I am thinking it’s It’s been a tough week for most professionals and workers in all industries. Lets Be Positive On A Sunday. . . . On A Sunday, WHO other than DEMONS could be offended by encouragement? This is the downside of Fishbowl and the sidetracking of not being able to make progress and not being able to initiate networking activities. Thank God I don’t work with these types of goons.

4 years ago, Olivia G. Ritter

Student-user

This app is the perfect way for professionals to connect in a more laid-back, social way. I have appreciated the more relatable posts asking for advice or tips on career goals. This app has been a huge help in figuring out what I may want to do in my career following college, since I have been doing e-learning throughout COVID-19. Students today are so competitive and caught up in getting ahead of their peers. Fishbowl combats that sense of competition with the aspect of anonymity and relaxed posting style. I will definitely continue using this app as I discover new career paths I may be interested in!

3 years ago, viprma

Spreads vaccine disinformation. Can’t delete your account.

I have never bothered to write an app review before. This is my first. The app is covered in anti vaccine posts. If you try to correct them then the anti vaccine people abuse the automatic moderation and get your content removed. Just delete the app. It would be unethical to keep using it when they allow conspiracy theorists and anti vaccine folks take over the site. It is not a professional environment any more. Furthermore when they suspend you, you can’t even get in to delete your data. Super shady company. I regret downloading. You think it is anonymous but then they could abuse your data. Use Blind. Far superior app and much better policies. Now watch. Auto written response to this post asking me to contact them for a review. No real customer service.

4 years ago, Ashford447

A bunch of teachers talking

Have you ever been to a staff meeting and the teachers just wouldn’t stop talking? That’s what this feels like 90% of the time. “What’s your favorite thing about fall?” This was one question sent to my work email address via automatic emails - settings that you can’t change. That’s probably the absolute worst thing about the app, that you can’t turn emails off. Apart from that, it’s decent. It would be a good platform for anyone who really wants to anonymously connect with other teachers to throw information/questions out there that you wouldn’t want to talk to your district/admin about. Just really annoying that you can’t turn emails off or have them go to a personal account.

4 years ago, **SomeGirl**

It’s a trap.

I created an account on fishbowl approximately a week ago, and in doing so provided all of the requested information. I have since sought to delete some of that information - for example, my employer - and am unable to do so. When I tap into the employer field on the app, I am requested to input a email so the app can verify my employer. I entered an old email address with the hope that, in doing so, I could then edit my employer. I was wrong, and the effect was to change my employer from what I put originally to my university since the email I provided was my school email. I am still unable to delete my employer. Being unhappy with the lack of control over my account, I tried to delete it. It is also impossible to delete my account from the app. The website directs its users to the “send feedback” button in order to delete their profiles. When doing so, I received a message indicating my app was not configured for email, despite having two confirmed emails on file thanks to the employer issue above. I am greatly dissatisfied with the lack of control I have over my account, and find the difficultly in deleting the account to be very suspicious. I wish I had never downloaded this app.

4 years ago, Al.Y

Promising but not quite there

Interesting place to discuss work and non work topics anonymously. A couple of things that could be better: the notification is overly aggressive, would be nice to be able to tweak settings. Also when you see a response to your comment, the app doesn’t show you the whole thread, and if need it you’ll have to go back to the bowl to find it. Lastly, the activity on company-specific bowls are on the quiet side - I’m new and don’t know how much I should expect it to grow. My company has 100k employees. If the bowl is still quiet after a few months especially on quality topics, I’ll probably stop using frequently.

3 years ago, wwreith

Never challenge a liberal view

Quickest way to get banned is to post anything that can be seen as remotely conservative opinion or simply not agreeing with extreme left wing views, meanwhile liberals can suggest suicide, job loss, insults to their hearts content against anyone for any reason. Sadly with the recent election there has been a bombardment of such talk across nearly every board even boards where the topic should have nothing to do with politics. I was recently given a permanent ban for a one sentence response to someone demanding everyone change to liberal approved terms like chestfeeding instead of Breastfeeding. My exact response was “with everything else going on do you believe this is the most important issue in the US”. We are in a pandemic, millions out of work, black men are shot by cops, ultra conservatives storming the capital. But attacking people for not saying chestfeeding is the important issue of the day. Yeah ok. For questioning this persons priorities with a simple question. No profanity. Never called them stupid or anything negative just asked is this topic really the most important thing? Well apparently it is to Fishbowl. I have been permanently banned for it. The moderators for this App are the utterly intolerant ones.

2 years ago, Mrk394

Student access is useless.

You cannot like or comment on anything. How does one make connections, find job openings, or locate apartments or roommates if they cannot respond to the opportunities provided in bowls? I thought this app would be beneficial to help with the above listed reasons. Since I haven’t entered the workforce yet, I do not have a company email which is required to sign up. However, I do have a bachelors degree and therefore am no longer considered a student. Why is there not a middle option??? A “currently unemployed in your field, but seeking an open position” would be a well utilized option in the sign up process, I’m certain of it. I deleted the app immediately. Maybe it could be helpful when I have a job title after my name to create some respect for me.

2 years ago, Shelbyd505

Needs some tweaking

It’s a beautiful app. However, there’s no way to answer industry questions or company questions once you’ve left, or switched to an analogous job skills-wise in a different sector. I also highly doubt the anonymity component of the app, since I tried to enter my current company/email address and they said they had to verify it with my company. And then my company name is displayed on my profile as well as next to anything I comment on— come on y’all. This whole oversight defeats the entire purpose. No way would I use this and trust that it’s working as it’s supposedly intended to. I can’t delete my profile either which is a huge oversight and frankly I would advise not to download this app.

5 months ago, LibbysCreamer

Censors speech

They’ll remove posts that go against your company leadership and flag it as violation of community guidelines, no matter if the comment is constructive or innocuous. People have screenshot comments or posts in our company bowl that have been taken down for simply raising awareness of bad leadership behavior or impending layoffs. It’s clear Fishbowl can be brought to “cleanse” data. They’ll also ban you after three flags, and considering they’ll qualify anything that gets reported as a violation you really don’t have to say much to get banned. This app is 100% censored and does nothing to delineate simple forms of expression vs truly offensive content- I have entirely disengaged from the platform and use it on rare occasions. I won’t be surprised if they end up selling user data soon enough.

3 years ago, ModernEsther

Becoming increasingly annoying

It’s a good place to post anonymous things and get some occasionally useful responses. New features that allow random people (e.g. job applicants asking the same questions over and over) to tag your company and thereby send you a direct alert are very annoying, and there is no way to opt out of these obnoxious unsolicited notifications. Also has a flawed algorithm for flagging negative postings— many truly unhelpful and provocative troll posts persist, while several of my factual direct answers to questions have been tagged as excessively negative. This should be policed more accurately, since it can get you banned from the app.

4 years ago, mariusbmore

Best Place to Network

Thanks to Fishbowl, I’ve had a chance to grow my professional network in a far more meaningful way than any other app. Being new to the job market has proved challenging (especially during COVID), but Fishbowl has provided me with a professional safety net to get job recommendations, ask questions, and get valuable insight about how to best leverage this down time. It’s honestly one app I feel like I’m not just wasting my time on — grateful for the valuable insight and connections. Glad this app exists!

1 year ago, franchesca.felix

Where Do You Sign Up???

Lol. Only 3 options for logging in… click either: “I’m a professional”, “I’m a student” or “I’m an existing user”. However, there is absolutely no option to sign up to even become an “existing user”. Makes absolutely no sense. If this is for the people to view reviews about jobs they’re applying for or whatnot… what kind of access are you really giving us? None. If we’re not either a professional, student or so-called “existing user”. Make it make sense. Clearly this does not. I give it ONE star. No more. Sorry but consider giving new users an option to want to join in order to view these reviews they work for so we can make better decisions on what jobs we decide to apply for. Thank you!

2 years ago, Georgia Jenny

Terrible engagement guidelines

The concept is cool in theory but the way they manage speech is nuts. Anyone can blindly report another person for hate speech or abuse and they’ll automatically get suspended for several days even if they didn’t say anything abusive or hateful. It’s absolutely subjective. And there’s a 3 strikes and you’re out rule. No way to petition a reversal. It’s just a Wild West of people saying things to get a rise out of each other and then reporting them when they do. So dumb. Plus, the community leans heavily towards white, elitist, privileged rich people who have zero perspective of the world and their white fragility is on display everywhere. The app is owned by Glassdoor, another terribly managed community, so it’s no wonder this one is becoming a similar toilet of artificial nonsense.

3 years ago, Cindy9145

Does not have mechanism to identify and prevent spread of misinformation

Fishbowl in its report menu provides a few kinds of post violations including offensive, stereotype, negativity, privacy and safety concern, but it does not provide an avenue to report false inform, and I do not believe they have a structured way of identifying such information and prevent possible negative impacts arising from those posts. As a public forum, it is their duty and due diligence to make an effort in that regard, as opposed to completely ignore that compared to other forms of violation. The anonymity of this platform potentially requires even more of that supervision, as users may be able to misrepresent themselves as experts in a certain area and spread misleading information that can lead to mental or physical damages to others.

8 months ago, MS4545

Culturally important platform in a changing profession

As a practicing, law firm lawyer for 40 years (more than half of which I spent as a partner in AmLaw 25 firms), I seek to provide a perspective rather than an opinion. I believe that this platform is unique and there are few who come to this platform with my level of experience, both in years and in biglaw. I want to help young lawyers to achieve their goals and to avoid the mistakes I made. For those purposes Fishbowl is very, very well-designed and user-friendly.

4 years ago, AngKari

It’s becoming an ideological cult

I want to preface this review by saying that I did enjoy using your app. Regrettably, my account has been suspended indefinitely. Sadly, I find the moderation process to be arbitrary and uncomfortably biased/intolerant. Can you please explain the logic and unbiased method for suspending an account? Do you actively monitor all posts or just those who are flagged by users? If it’s the latter case, then can you explain the logic and unbiased method for identifying non-reported posts that violate your community rules? Again, you have a great app but you really should revamp your moderation process to allow for disagreements, even if heated. Otherwise, your user base will continue to become more of a ideological cult than an actual, diverse group of professionals.

2 years ago, Happyplayground

Elitist and exclusive

Now and again there’s a decent thread happening. I think it would be must more useful if it didn’t require your company email to join anonymously. Obv people have given it but my company specifically requires us to sign an agreement never to use our professional email for anything personal or to build a membership. Surely Fishbowl knows this is a norm for companies. They should allow every single person anonymity esp if you want to get the truth. People who are freelance who do may have a company email have the most information about internal happenings than anyone excepting HR. For equity there’s needs to be a policy for everyone to have access to all of the conversations too. Alas that’s not the case either.

4 years ago, Yes to Fishbowl

Students NEED This App!

As someone who has changed her college major six times, the best career advice I could get was the top hits from typing in “What is it like to be a (insert career)?” on Google. I was absolutely aimless in deciphering my career path and had no information to guide me. Fishbowl takes you directly to the source, and you get to talk in real time with working professionals within certain industries and companies. Your name is anonymous, so you’re able to be as candid as you wish. I recommend Fishbowl to all of my college friends!

2 years ago, The Greatest of These is Love

Enjoy the Conversation

I really enjoy the conversations I have with other educators using this app. For the most part, people stay respectful of other people’s ideas. I learn how differently districts operate and I get a larger world view of my industry and the issues that we have to contend with. I don’t like arrogance and people who put others down just to win an argument. They have already lost in my opinion. So I take what I can, participate when I can, and learn from my colleagues in a collaborative way. Isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?

12 months ago, Bundysmom

Useless app

Fishbowl has numerous BOWLS you can join to discuss topics relevant to that particular bowl. Unfortunately, there is no one to monitor, moderate, or administer these Bowls. For example The Work Life Balance Bowl states it’s for professionals across various industries to discus relevant WLB issues. Yet people have turned it into Facebook & IG, seeking relationship advice, writing reviews about restaurants, employers, stores; seeking career advice; soliciting jobs; seeking legal advice; daily affirmations; memes; foodie pics & recipes; spam…which are reported & not removed, clogging up the Bowl with posts that don’t belong. Forget there are Bowls for these posts to be made in. The WLB Bowl used to be useful & now it’s anything but. Due to the lack of oversight by Fishbowl & what goes on in these Bowls, the app is useless.

1 year ago, supersteveeb2000

Couldn’t even sign up

I know I have a unique degree. I still decided to test out this app to see if there was any chance that other people from my profession/with my degree use this app. Well, the answer is no. How do I know that? Because I can’t even finish signing up. My major (marine transportation) is not listed in the drop down and therefore, even typing in my degree, that box is left red and I cannot go to the next page to finish signing up. I graduate soon so I am at the point in my academic career where I am deciding which job offer to accept. I guess I cannot use this app to help make that decision and I guess this app is not worth coming back to when I can be considered a professional

3 years ago, JH82198

Disgusting privacy practices

Deleting my account. Here’s a small list of all the issues: Require first name, last name, picture of your face, cell phone number, company email, automatically opt you into receiving marketing emails on your WORK email, automatically opt you into making your profile public and able to be searched on search engines, purposely abusive and confusing privacy policy with no GDPR or CCPA compliance and telling you to change your privacy setting across 3-4 different services, the instructions to change tracking are in the policy but completely not existing in the app. This is a spying app meant to sell your information to recruiters. Delete your account. This company is TRASH.

4 years ago, an undecided student

Great platform to connect for college students!

As a college student, it’s important that I make connections early on to succeed in the working world. I have found that Fishbowl has allowed me to make these connections and have greater access to knowledge in fields that I want to pursue. For example, I’m interested in working in finance and fishbowl’s finance section has given me so much more insight in this industry. People speak open and honestly about the positive and negative aspects of their jobs/industries, which is extremely valuable!

4 years ago, T3MPL4R

Almost Impossible to Delete Your Account, Privacy Nightmare

In the age of privacy concerns, it’s pretty much a prerequisite to have 1) options to allow greater privacy for consumers and 2) be able to actually delete your account and any posts and other details you may have submitted. Fishbowl does not even have a way to delete old comments, and although they say on their FAQ on their website that there is an account deletion button in their app, there is not. There’s only an account “deactivation” button, which literally just emails the developers and opens a ticket that they seem to just ignore anyways. I find it hard to believe that an app that is predicated on anonymity could ever be successful with such anti-consumer and anti-privacy practices.

6 years ago, Tbroil

Spam

App is centered around gathering your contact information as well as those in your phone. It will then spam your contacts with invitations to the app. Edit: I find the developers response disingenuous and misleading. I received a text stating I had been ‘mentioned’ in a conversation by a colleague. The app would not allow me to see this conversation until I signed up and allowed it access to my contacts, which is undoubtedly how the last guy got suckered into giving up my number to begin with. To make matters worse, I was never actually mentioned by the person Fishbowl referenced on the text message I received from them in any conversation. It was simply Fishbowls way of getting me to sign up. I believe this is called Spam.

4 years ago, BeeBee54321

Delete my account and stop harassing!

I started getting automatic text messages on my phone from this app though I had never downloaded it. It said my coworker invited me. I started the process of downloading and setting it up like a fool when I realized it wanted to send emails to my work addy and verify me on linkedin. This made me unconfortable so I emailed them several days ago asking for the account to be deleted. (The app is stuck on asking me for personal info and I can't do anything with it.) Meanwhile I'm still getting these annoying text messages. I asked the ppl on my team if they sent it to me and they said no. (We are candid with each other.) I'm not sure how they even got my number. Could be *Phish*bowl is a better name?

4 years ago, delete trevor

Terrible signup process

Fishbowl has a terrible signup process which doesn’t allow you to go back and edit your choices after you select them, and forces you to finish the signup process before you can interact with the app in any other way. I work in education technology, which makes it ambiguous whether or not I should choose education or technology for my base category. I chose “teaching”, which must have been wrong, since my organization didn’t appear in the drop down, and the only option I was given was to continue the signup process and provide a bunch of personal information, even though I was stuck in a state where the app was unusable.

Description

Fishbowl is where professionals go to connect and talk in a new era of remote work. Choose from thousands of Industry, Community or Company Bowls ("Groups") and have genuine conversations with other verified professionals that are working in roles and industries similar to your own. You can join different bowls or professional groups with others from the same background as yourself to get real advice, share work stories, and network. Don't miss out on what your coworkers and colleagues are saying. FEATURES ----------- LIVE FEED See what similar professionals are saying right now with a real-time feed for your specific industry and profession. LIVE AUDIO EVENTS & CHAT Join live audio-only conversations and get to know others in your professional communities. Start a conversation with coworkers and colleagues, or listen to industry leaders share their thoughts on different topics with the ability to join the conversation with them! NETWORKING Network and direct message with professionals across your industry or meet others within your company by turning on networking mode. Discover new jobs and get a referral to companies. BOWLS (GROUPS) Start or join bowls with people in your industry about anything! You can create or join bowls to: • Have conversations about a specific interest or area of expertise. • Network with former work colleagues and classmates. • Connect with professionals that have similar backgrounds to yourself. • Exchange insights and advice with others working at your Co. or Org • Meet up and get to know other professionals similar to you • Create bowls (professional groups) for interests or networking! • Discover new jobs and opportunities through networking and get referrals. Join hundreds of thousands of professionals from various industries including management consulting, advertising, tech, accounting, finance, law, healthcare, and education. Have conversations with professionals from companies and organizations like McKinsey, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Accenture, EY, PwC, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Skadden, Ogilvy, Saatchi, Publicis, Wieden+Kennedy, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Skadden, UCSF, Mount Sinai, Teach for America, the National Education Association and many more. Get the help you need to climb the career ladder. www.fishbowlapp.com **LinkedIn Account or Work Email required** Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information: https://www.glassdoor.com/about/doNotSell.htm