How Can Online Reviews Turn Away Top Talent?

Brands go two ways now. There was a time (think: Mad Men, smoke at work, drink at lunch, wear a tie to the movies kind of time) when the only branding you had to worry about was to consumers. These days (work from home, check Twitter, go to the movies in sweat suits and yoga pants kind of times), companies have to brand to employees too.

Today, keeping a strong employer brand makes landing talented workers much easier. Within a few years, that will represent the bare minimum – employer brands will be as central to a company’s identity as consumer brands.

Like with consumer brands, which are driven in part by rating services such as Yelp, online reviews make up a key part of a firm’s employer brand. Sites like Glassdoor give current and former employees a forum to air dirty laundry and to sing the praises of a great company (though those are usually less fun to read).

A bad review might not seem like a harbinger of the apocalypse. What’s one disgruntled former employee in the grand scheme of things? But it can impact your recruitment process in various ways.

Silent Impact

You might not see the direct influence on your job searches from negative reviews. After all, you can’t count the people who DON’T apply. You might not even see a significant drop in the number of resumes you receive.

But the top prospects – the ones with the most options – might skip applying for your position. A bad review skims off the people who have other opportunities, keeping you from even considering the best that’s available.

Passive Recruitment Gets Harder

With high employee turnover among the most talented employees and a heavy reliance on less-stable freelance contractors, HR departments have settled into a pattern of near-constant recruitment. That means passive recruitment has become a key way of drawing good employees into the firm.

Employer branding is crucial to this process. A bad review can stay in a person’s mind long after the specific issues mentioned in the post have been fixed. The internet tends to remember, and a bad review can make it difficult for you to pique the interest of talented people down the road.

Stymies Employee Referral Programs

A key component to a passive recruitment strategy is an employee referral program. Basically, employees are given a bonus for recommending the company to their friends and family, who represent potential future co-workers.

However, if those friends and family see a bad review online, it might turn them away before they get into the recruitment process.

Snowball Effect

People can sometimes hold things inside. Festering grudges, repressed complaints, all of which can get unleashed by one bad review. Former employees (and even current ones) can feel emboldened to post their own online screed once the first one appears.

You want to make sure you are framing the conversation about your company. Avoiding bad reviews ensures the discourse doesn’t go down a dark rabbit hole.

Partner with Qualified Staffing!

Building a good relationship with employees and creating a situation where bad reviews become unthinkable starts at the recruiting process. By teaming up with a staffing firm, like Qualified Staffing, you get everything off on the right foot, bringing in the right people for your situation.

Contact Qualified Staffing today to learn more.