According to the “2018 Reputation Management Study” from MRINetwork, employee referrals (cited by 59 percent) are the most popular way job candidates seek to evaluate employers, outdoing even company websites (56 percent).
Employees can have an impact beyond direct referrals, too. More candidates rely on Glassdoor or similar sites (38 percent), where employees review companies, than on media coverage (24 percent) when evaluating prospective employers.
Finally, candidates are more apt to judge employer brands on the basis of employee testimonials (28 percent) than to look at the company’s career site (21 percent), marketing materials (19 percent) or social media (19 percent).
Employee reviews have become much more accessible with the growth of sites such as Glassdoor.com that enable former and current employees to review their companies. According to Glassdoor’s recently released “Top 100 2018 Best Places to Work” survey, Lululemon was the top retailer at six on the list. Other retailers making the cut included H-E-B, 20; Wegmans, 49; Nike, 53; REI, 61; Trader Joe’s, 70; J. Crew, 75; Apple, 84; and Starbucks, 96.
Scott Dobroski, a Glassdoor community expert, told USA Today that the three top drivers of long-term employee satisfaction are company culture, career opportunities and trust in senior leadership.
Employee referrals are an old-school but often neglected recruitment tool. According to a Humetrics blog entry, Mel Kleiman, president and a RetailWire BrainTrust panelist, writes that referrals who are hired are more likely to be above average performers and stay on board longer because they already have a friend or acquaintance on the staff.
His tips for making referrals from employees more effective include:
- Shrinking the “circle of people you ask about” by specifically asking whether anybody from their church, neighborhood, school, last job, etc. would be a good fit;
- Teaching employees how to best present the pros and cons of a prospective job;
- Letting them know any recommendation that doesn’t work isn’t their fault and will never be held against them;
- Remind employees that people whose names they share will likely be flattered, even if they’re not interested.