Sam Michelson is the Founder and CEO of Five Blocks, a leading intelligent digital reputation management company.
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Companies are thinking hard about attracting (and keeping) talented employees at a time when many seem to be opting out of corporate careers. The challenges posed by the Great Resignation serve as yet another reminder of the importance of how prospective employees see the employer brand. Companies often focus on how they are seen online by investors or potential customers, but only those seen as excellent places to work will manage to attract talent in this climate. Planning and curating your digital reputation in this area can supercharge your efforts to attract talented employees.
The bottom line, again and again, is authenticity and transparency where values are concerned. Online, just like offline, these are key elements in attracting great employees. You have likely worked hard to paint a deliberate picture of your company, what you are about and what you can offer the job seeker that matters to them. Is everyone who matters finding that picture online?
The following are a few best practices we’ve developed in advising some of the world’s top companies to optimize their employer brand online. While we are not experts in HR/hiring and company values, we are experts in how to ensure that the values you want to communicate are seen when stakeholders search.
Speak directly to the audience you want to reach.
Does your online presence resonate with your ideal audience? Are your potential employees concerned with the environment? Business ethics? Sustainability? Equal opportunity? If these are authentic colors in your company flag, don’t hold back — talk about your values on your website, blog, social media, etc., to make sure who you are isn’t a company secret. And if they are not, never fake it. Authenticity will save you needless trouble down the road.
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Understand what your competitors are doing better than you.
Who are you competing with for talent? I cannot overstate the importance of studying your peers, and especially your aspirational peers. Think about the last five interviewees who chose a competitor. Looking at what those companies are doing online that may be helping them is a must.
Figure out what’s important to your prospective employees.
Understand what your audience is asking. Study the questions job seekers are searching for by looking at “People Also Ask” questions for your brand and, just as important, for competitors. Specifically, look at questions that may be asked frequently: “What is it like to work at company X?” Do the same with “search suggestions” and “related searches.” In each case, you can learn what job searchers in your space care about.
Create content that addresses the important stuff.
Answer the questions! Ensure that you are creating content on your site, on Glassdoor, on LinkedIn, on your Careers pages, on Quora and your YouTube channel that asks the desired questions and supports and answers the specific questions and concerns that your job searchers have.
Analyze the data.
Geek out on research. Use Google Search Console to see where job searchers (people who search “your company + careers”) land on your site and how much time they spend on specific pages. Where do you want them to end up, and where do they actually go? And which searches show your site but do not cause people to click?
Streamline the user experience.
What’s it like to apply? On your website, streamline the process required to submit an application or ask a question. Why lose candidates on a user experience technicality? Make it easy for searchers to talk to you: provide phone numbers, chat options, contact forms, etc. — whatever is most appropriate for your target audience.
Keep a pulse on your reviews.
Mind your reviews. Nothing stops people from applying for a job or inquiring about an opportunity more quickly than bad reviews. Reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed should reflect the real experiences people have working for your company. Note that a new Knowledge Panel now appears in Google when people do career-related searches — one that includes links to the company’s career site/pages and employee review sites.
Make sure you encourage employees to leave honest reviews so that you don’t get reviews only from disgruntled or unhappy former employees. And if those do arrive, consider engaging honestly. “Getting on the dance floor” can often improve both your ratings and your employees’ sense that you care. Truthfully, the same rules apply online as in real life. Engaging with employees is often a good policy.
It’s time to use all the tools you have — your owned content (corp and careers site); earned media (thought pieces and corporate profiles); community sourced content (reviews in which you take an active role); social media (including dedicated career feeds, like an employer-brand Instagram account); multimedia (YouTube channel); and more — to ensure your business is being seen, heard and experienced online in a way that puts your brand in the ideal light when considered by potential new employees.
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Author: Sam Michelson, Forbes Councils Member
