Best Practices for Managing Your Glassdoor Employer Profile

June 20, 2018
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Glassdoor is to employment connections what Facebook is to social connections. It is one of the most important resources job candidates rely on to conduct employer research. To consistently recruit top talent, your Glassdoor employer profile should positively showcase your company culture, employee experience, and wages and benefits. Consider these statistics:

  • Nearly 57 million unique users visit Glassdoor’s website and mobile application monthly.
  • It is the second largest job website in the US, following Indeed and ahead of LinkedIn.
  • There are 40 million + reviews and insights for approximately 770,000 companies.
  • More than 50 percent of job candidates for the companies listed on Glassdoor use the site to research their prospective employers.
  • 3 in 4 job seekers are more likely to apply to an open position if the employer is active on Glassdoor.

Given the website’s importance to job seekers, it is worth dedicating resources to achieving and maintaining a high employer rating, which is the average of employee review scores and a trusted measure of company reputation. Yet the average company rating is just 3.3 out of 5. This suggests many employers have room to improve their profile ratings and overall Glassdoor presence by following these best practices:

Get Started by Creating a Free Employer Account

If you already have an account, skip ahead. A free employer account enables you to update your company information, promote your brand and culture with photos and videos, tailor your profile to distinct audiences, and feature and respond to reviews. A free account also allows you to monitor profile traffic and learn about your candidates’ demographics. Go here to create your account. All you need to get started is a valid company email address to verify your account.

Help Job Candidates Envision Working at Your Company

Job candidates form a comprehensive impression of your company culture on Glassdoor by reviewing your company overview, updates, benefits, and photos. In your overview, provide your company’s vital information and use the text section to appeal to candidates with a friendly and engaging voice. Use the company updates section to post articles and other content designed to promote your company values and culture. When your company receives positive press or accolades from trusted sources, keep your updates fresh with this news.

A picture on Glassdoor is worth more than 1,000 words. The photos section is a great way to showcase your employees in action, varied working environments, and enjoyable company functions. When your employees contribute to their communities and charitable causes, post photos that demonstrate your company’s commitments and principles. When executives speak at industry events or make television appearances, promote their industry leadership with photos.

Gradually Solicit Employee Reviews

Candidates read at least seven employee reviews before forming an opinion about a company. Your reviews and cumulative rating should be an accurate reflection of your employees’ day-to-day experiences. Ultimately, the only way to achieve a high rating is to be a great employer. The problem for many great employers, however, is that employees with negative experiences and disgruntled former employees review at a higher rate than people with generally positive experiences. Without prompting, your typical satisfied employee is not likely to write a Glassdoor review. Occasional prompting raises employee awareness about Glassdoor, and results in even more organic reviews.

Glassdoor prohibits employers from incentivizing employees to write reviews, but has provided a template for encouraging input. You will want to go about this process gradually, so that the pace of reviews is consistent over time, negative reviews don’t get spotlighted for too long, and the sequence doesn’t look suspicious to candidates. For example, if several negative reviews are followed by a waterfall of positive reviews as part of a pattern, it appears that these reviews were aggressively solicited.

Start encouraging reviews by sending the message to managers and long-tenured employees. Divide your lists into equal segments, solicit gradually, and time your communications to follow positive employee impressions, such as company outings and holiday bonuses. Additionally, send these communications to employees following work anniversaries, or when employees pay leadership a compliment. Some employers choose to use an external agency to handle these communications.

Monitor, Respond, and Adapt to Reviews

Glassdoor allows employers to respond once to each review, so use this opportunity to amplify positive reviews, mitigate the risks of negative reviews, and continually improve the employee experience based on the full range of feedback.

When the inevitable negative reviews occur, the employer responses should be written by upper management. These responses should be tailored to influence current and future employees, rather than to change the mind of the reviewer. Depending on the issue, you may want to address what the company is doing to solve a problem (if indeed, there is one) and resources the company offers employees when dealing with similar problems. If there is a trend in the negative reviews, use this information to drive needed organizational changes.

When employees mention positive experiences, especially those related to salary and benefits, thank reviewers and bolster the feedback with replies, emphasizing company values and commitments to employees.

Link Your Glassdoor Profile with Other Social Channels

Once you believe that your Glassdoor profile has become a valuable marketing asset to job candidates, use it to drive awareness among current and future employees. Link the profile to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social accounts. Provide icon links from your website and each social platform. Include your Glassdoor link in companywide emails, on your intranet, and in other relevant communications. Promoting your positive company culture through Glassdoor is much more effective when you promote your company profile on Glassdoor to everyone who can contribute.

Clearly, achieving a reputation as a great place to work is a key to talent acquisition. Your Glassdoor Employer Profile is an indispensable resource in achieving this objective, so manage it well!