Today’s sales candidates are super savvy and have already done their research before applying for a role. The sales community are experienced researchers as part of their role as a salesperson. They know how to approach the research and when it comes to being a job seeker looking for work, they are influenced by an employee review from fellow salespeople.
Their goal is to learn more about the personal experience of fellow sales community members who work or have worked for your company rather than rely on company branding. They are looking for both sides of the story to get a balanced view of the risk of changing job roles. The job boards provide sales candidates with a more transparent look into what’s really happening at your sales organisation.
Your Employer Brand Exists Whether You Supervise It or Not
Companies invest in their brand, and creating a strong employer brand is equally as important as creating a strong customer brand. The company’s reputation is communicated through the employer value proposition through the talent acquisition process.
As marketers know, companies need to be proactive and manage their brand and not just on their own careers page or website. You need to actively watch job boards with employer pages, social media, and especially sites with employer reviews. Human resource teams must now be mindful of how the brand is being managed and ensure the correct and current information is being conveyed to the market.
Monitoring your brand on job board review sites is especially important if your company has recently had (or is about to have) structural changes in sales teams and those with customer-interacting roles.
The sales community can leave a negative review if they are affected by the structural changes and are more likely to do so. Therefore, it is important to have in place a strategy to manage those reviews and be aware of them being posted.
As specialised job boards, like Glassdoor, build their Employer Profiles and encourage reviews from current and past employees, companies need to have their finger on the pulse and ensure their brand is managed. According to brand management companies, over 80% of people are directly influenced by online reviews for products, employment, travel, or just about anything. By not taking charge of your brand, you can be missing out on potentially great candidates applying for your roles.
How to Monitor Your Employer Brand
Companies need to keep track of the 20-plus employee review sites and not just focus on the main general job boards. With the rise of dedicated industry job boards, you need to be watching them closely. First, ensure your brand page is completed and monitor your review scores. Then, develop a strategy or plan of action to respond to comments and reviews.
A concerning element is the sites that allow anonymous reviews. These are harder to trace and validate and raise concerns over the comments’ validity. A person posting a positive review will be comfortable putting their name to their scores, whereas an anonymous review will most likely draw negativity. We understand from the research of those posting negative reviews that they need to be addressed immediately when the person has included their real name.
Job board review sites are developing as an important and trusted part of the sales hiring process and influence the entire sales candidate engagement process, from application to interviewing and the final job offer.
Claiming Your Company Profile
Managing employer reviews is only one part of brand management. You need to ensure your employer profile page is updated and maintained. Profiles on sites like Indeed and Glassdoor should be claimed and managed. You can verify the company profile as an employer and add updated photos, descriptions, video links, relevant links, and other information.
Companies are asked to pay a fee to Glassdoor to own their company profile on the site, but on other sites, you can claim your page and post updates, awards, and photos at no cost. You are then communicating the right message to the sales community to attract top talent.
Who Should Manage the Employer Brand
Managing the employer brand will depend on the size of your company. The best results are achieved when Marketing departments are responsible for claiming company pages and populating them with the right messaging and marketing collateral. In addition, they are best placed to keep employer pages up to date as new and exciting news needs to be communicated to the market.
Human resources are best placed to encourage employees to provide reviews. They need to be proactive in encouraging ratings from existing employees and building a bank of positive reviews. A company with no reviews is just as concerning as a company with negative reviews in the eyes of potential candidates.
For smaller organisations with no formal marketing department, check out if the job board has a custom service to assist you with the population of your company page.
Building Your Employer Reviews
Companies can assist in positively building their brands on these job boards using an internal strategy to encourage reviews.
Communications from the HR team and marketing to the sales organisation leaders and related roles, such as customer service, about the importance of reviews and how they assist in attracting the best employees.
Those leaders should be encouraged to leave reviews first and foremost. Then, encourage their team members to add a review to the job board (or other employer sites). Ideally, those reviews convey it is a great place to work, and it directly assists in attracting and retaining employees.
Take the time to read those employee reviews and consider potential sales candidates researching your company on a review site. Are they reading derogatory stories and less than complimentary comments? How likely would you be to apply for a job at your company after reading those reviews?
Proactively encouraging current employees to provide reviews can change the view of your company to prospective sales candidates. It is important not to influence or dictate content, as it creates a lack of trust in your team. If they post a negative review, you have an alert to address a potential cultural issue in your business.
Your employer brand is in the hands of the employees you hire and sometimes is influenced by the candidates you interview.
Your employer brand and employee reviews are incredibly important as a business, and the hiring process is more online. Additionally, brand management becomes even more important in markets or industries where vacancies outstrip the available candidates.
Your employment brand is an essential function of companies now and in the future. Having a proactive employer branding strategy should be part of your overall company strategy.
If you found this article helpful, follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to Our Insights on the right-hand column of this page to make sure you don’t miss new posts.
Articles you may also be interested in reading:
- Hiring Strategy For the Right Salesperson: Sales Connections vs. Sales Behaviours
- Hiring Competent Salespeople to Grow Your Business
- Networking For Sales Career Opportunities
© Y2022 Sales Focus Advisory. All Rights Reserved
