Consumers like to post reviews.
Whether their feedback is good or bad, doing so tends to help them feel better about their experience with a product or company – even if that means fervently venting their displeasure.
The same applies to job candidates and employees – and the power of their online reviews can be extensive, long-lasting, and potentially very damaging to your brand and image, unless you effectively address them.
You can’t afford to ignore negative reviews.
There’s a lot of research to support the power of online reviews. Recent study results show that:
- Sixty-seven percent of purchasing decisions are impacted by online reviews.
- Forty-eight percent of job candidates use Glassdoor in their job search. While 40 percent of respondents in one study said they would apply to a company as long as it had earned one star, a third said a company needed at least three stars to earn their application.
- Eighty-three percent of job seekers are likely to base their decision on where to apply on company reviews – and 46 percent weigh a company’s reputation heavily before accepting a job offer.
Glassdoor and Indeed are far from the only platforms used to air grievances. Facebook, Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, blogs … and the list goes on to encompass just about anywhere someone might post online.
So, what’s an employer to do?
If and when a negative review is posted about your workplace, use it as a learning opportunity and a catalyst for brand improvement. Take things a proactive step further by asking employees to be brand ambassadors and post positive reviews.
Here are some additional guidelines to consider:
- Continually monitor review sites. Assign this responsibility to a senior staff member with good judgment and intuitive skills.
- Set up alerts to notify you when a review has been posted.
- Think twice about how you respond to negative content. Depending on applicable laws or the nature of an issue, you could risk violating someone’s right to privacy or disclosing information.
- Encourage staff participation. Let staff members know you’re monitoring these sites and appreciate their feedback.
- Have an effective exit interview process. Give departing employees an opportunity to share any dissatisfactions they may have with your company in person, before they leave. This helps minimize the chance they will vent online at a later date.
Ignoring review sites is not the answer. Rather, learn from them and use them to your advantage.
Employer branding is critical to your recruitment success – and managing online reviews is just one small piece of it. If it all becomes overwhelming at times, it may be time to partner with a team of experienced recruitment marketing pros. At Haley Marketing, we focus on the four pillars of recruitment marketing – career sites, job advertising, social recruiting, and employer branding. We’d love to work with you so you can save time, improve your recruitment marketing ROI, and keep your employer brand top of mind among leading talent. Contact us today to learn more.
