HR branding is the most powerful tool for attracting new staff. If your company has a reputation as a reliable employer who cares about its team, it makes your vacancies attractive to job seekers and reduces the cost of hiring specialists. After all, the best employees choose the best offers. They don’t want to take risks, so they’ll choose a trusted employer.
The experience of Reputation House, an agency with more than 10 years of experience in the reputation marketing market, proves the importance of employee reviews. The company operates in different regions of the world; it has offices in 8 countries and a team of over 200 people.
Agency representatives pose a logical question “Would you send your resume to a company with poor working conditions, irregular salary payments, and a complete lack of corporate culture?”. With a high degree of probability, the answer will be negative, which is also confirmed by the statistics on the importance of reviews presented by Reputation House:
- Up to 69% of job seekers will turn down an offer from a company with a bad reputation, even if they are currently unemployed.
- Even when the compensation is increased by 100%, about one-third of candidates will still not consider an offer from an employer with a bad reputation.
From a psychological point of view, such a position is absolutely justified. After all, in-demand specialists want to be part of the team of a leader in their field. It is important for them to feel confident in the rightness of their choice, convinced that their merits will be appreciated and that they are actually important to the company.
Reputation House: Employee Reviews are Especially Important in Search Engines
Why is it necessary for a company to maintain a good reputation in search engine results? A job seeker will search for information about a future employer online. To do this, they enter branded HR queries, for which the search engine provides employee reviews. Such data is not perceived as advertising since the person found it on their own and no one imposed familiarity with it. It is also important that 95% of people examine the information only on the first page of the search results, which is why it receives special attention.
Reputation House says that employee reviews with a negative tone lead to a rapid decline in the attractiveness of the HR brand. And the natural consequence of that is the deterioration of the business as a whole. Just a few negative opinions about your company can start such a chain of events:
- A qualified job seeker finds negativity in a search engine. Accordingly, he does not send his resume to you but looks for a more attractive employer.
- Your recruiter is forced to hire a less competent professional.
- A new employee doesn’t perform at their best, making mistakes that lead to more negative feedback about your company, product, or service. Other people read them, and as a result, sales drop, staff turnover increases, and it becomes very difficult to avoid a crisis.
But if you break the loop at the very beginning, Reputation House argues, reviews with a negative tone will save your business from damage. It is important to keep the negativity under control to prevent the worst-case scenario from unfolding.
How to Become a Leader for Job Seekers in Search Engines?
To solve this task, the Reputation House agency uses SERM technologies. The goal of Search Engine Reputation Management is to create an informational field on the first page of the search results that will work for the benefit of your HR brand.
To achieve this, Reputation House specialists work comprehensively with employee reviews:
- A comprehensive analysis of search engine results is conducted. Special attention is paid to branded queries, for example, “brand name + employee reviews”. The work is carried out jointly with the client’s HR department, which helps to identify the key problems of the company as an employer.
- A strategy for Reputation House’s work with reviews in SERM is developed and executed. Specialists determine websites and platforms that need tone adjustment, as well as the type and volume of content to be displaced. Preference is given to pushing out the negativity, i.e., bringing the positive and neutral content about the company to the first page. Editors, managers, marketers, and editors get involved. SERM Reputation House specialists create and publish news, reviews, articles, and other information on existing as well as specifically prepared resources. The values and corporate policy of the company and the advantages of working there are clearly conveyed to potential candidates. A native form of material presentation is used to exclude the perception of content as aggressive advertising. Correspondence with the owners of websites where inaccurate or aggressive information about the brand was published is carried out.
- The Reputation House strategy of working with reviews is analyzed and revised for the next cycle. Effective and ineffective channels and methods are identified, on the basis of which a new action plan is developed.
Through the strategic use of SERM tools, Reputation House can markedly enhance search results for both branded and non-branded queries. Negativity is relegated to lower positions, while the top spots are filled with verified content showcasing the company’s strengths as an employer.
What Does Reputation House’s Work With Employee Reviews Actually Provide?
The benefits of SERM tools include:
- Attracting and retaining the best employees who appreciate the company’s openness, good corporate culture and working conditions, and willingness to engage in dialog.
- Increasing the attractiveness of your own company is not due to salary growth but rather to a positive HR brand. The Reputation House agency emphasizes that reviews with a positive tone can save up to 43% of hiring costs.
- Getting honest feedback. The easiest way to understand how comfortable employees are with working in your company and what they are satisfied and dissatisfied with is through online reviews. They are usually left by anonymous users, so they write sincerely, without fear of dismissal or other negative consequences. And knowing the strengths and weaknesses allows you to make the necessary changes in the corporate culture and other areas. As a result, the staff will become more engaged and will work with greater dedication, which will have a positive impact on the company’s revenue growth.
Remember that even if there is already negative publicity about you online, the situation can be fixed. With Reputation House, you can take your HR brand to a whole new level and make it genuinely appealing to candidates.