Do you ever wonder what people think about working for your company?  You may have a stellar reputation and not even know it!  Or, great people may shy away from a job with you based on a few rumors that are outdated or unfair.  Follow these steps to figure out where you stand and make sure that your reputation is an asset in attracting great hires!

1. Find out what people say about you.

Make it a habit to ask ALL candidates what they’ve heard about you and encourage them to be honest.  Then, ask them WHERE they found the information and whether they perceived it positively or negatively.  This gives you a chance to demonstrate your approachability and commitment to being a good employer.  It also helps you determine how to build a body of knowledge about where your best candidates get their information so you can invest time and energy accordingly.

2. Publicize the facts—be known for the right reasons.

This doesn’t have to cost a lot of money!  Most local newspapers, especially business journal publications, have “People on the Move” sections.  Submit your new hires, recent promotions, employee awards, and community service events to these publications.  Include photos!  Many allow you to submit these online with minimal effort.  In addition, apply to every contest you can find for:  “Best Companies to Work For,” “Fastest Growing Companies,” “Most Community Minded,” etc.  You’ll be surprised how much goodwill you’ll build with your current employees AND you’ll raise your employment reputation in the meantime.

3. Ride the “social” wave.

Develop a clear strategy to determine which social media sites you’ll use.  Don’t use too many if you can’t keep them fresh—nothing is worse than allowing them to get stale with the most recent posts dated six months ago.  A great one to use is LinkedIn—it’s job search related and allows you to build a Career page for no cost.  Use it to share information about your business, your people (remember to publicize new hires, promotions and awards), your industry, open jobs, and a few fun posts along the way. 

One to be aware of is Glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com) which has become one of the most used employment reputation sites.  Unfortunately, it is most often used by disgruntled employees to bash management.  If you find you have bad reviews there, don’t react by having current employees debate the bad reviews you may receive on this site—it’s not very effective and may backfire.  If you don’t have any reviews yet, start a campaign now to set up positive reviews over several months so that any negative ones will be couched in terms of earlier and non-defensive postings.   

4. Harness your biggest fans to spread the word.

Develop an organic (“free”) video for your website’s Career page.  Ask a few employees to interview one another via a simple smart phone camera, sharing why they choose to work for you.  Even let them note one or two MINOR things that they’d like to see improved so that you get points for honesty and creativity. Post these videos on your site and on a company YouTube channel so they can be easily found when someone is considering coming to work for you.

In addition, ask your employees to post on LinkedIn and Twitter about what kinds of things they find special about your company.  Encourage them to go onto Google Reviews and rate your company as an employer.  This is especially effective when former employees write a 5-star review.  (Hint:  these reviews also help you build higher search engine rankings!)

Most employer reputations suffer from neglect and ignorance.  Armed with awareness, you can take these simple but effective steps to ignite your reputation so you have a line of job applicants ready to sign on whenever you have an opening.

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us to test your ideas or ask questions about this—or any—hiring topics that interest you! Access our free expertise, available by chatting or calling using the numbers at the lower left-hand corner of our website (www.peoplr.co).

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