According to Jobvite, 33% of organizations they surveyed have received negative reviews based on interactions that occur during the recruiting process. Further, the Jobvite study reveals that 75% of organizations they surveyed report that glassdoor can at least somewhat help them hire, as long as the reviews are positive. In other words, it pays when organizations recruit to avoid negative glassdoor reviews.
So what does that mean?
Communicate Often and Honestly
One of the biggest frustrations cited by job seekers is a lack of communication from employers during the hiring process. There is simply no reason NOT to touch base frequently with applicants.
Take the time to audit your communications with an eye toward over communicating. Whiteboard every possible candidate journey for your hiring process and map hiring stages and external communications to these scenarios. For example, hiring cycles often go longer than expected. Requisitions get eliminated. Create statuses and associated automatic emails in your ATS for these contingencies to ensure applicants and candidates are kept in the loop for such situations.
Make sure you have timely, honest and open emails sent when candidates are eliminated. There’s nothing more frustrating than applying – even interviewing for a job – and never hearing from the employer again. It’s disrespectful and kills your employer brand. Create custom notifications for silver medalists when you’ve committed an offer to another candidate. Let them know you were impressed and want to stay in touch.
As we know, it’s not uncommon for offers to get turned down or even ignored. Keeping all your candidates in the loop, and keeping your silver medalists warm is a great way to recruit to avoid negative glassdoor reviews.
Focus on Hiring Managers
It’s one thing to ghost an applicant. But when a candidate has taken time off work to meet with a hiring manager, it’s inexcusable, and a big reason why candidates leave negative glassdoor reviews. Think about it. It’s not just the time off work. It’s the prep time. The research. The wardrobe. The stress. A face-to-face interview is a huge investment of time and energy for every candidate.
Yet, for some reason, organizations still turn a blind eye to the goings on within hiring manager interviews. Here’s a small section of the menu of all-to-common slights that candidates see regularly in interviews:
- Hiring manager no-show
- Unfamiliar with resume
- More interested in phone alerts than candidate
- Position already filled
- Cold, condescending or aloof demeanor
- Seemingly pointless side interviews with hiring team members
Talent acquisition leaders should have a clear picture of how their hiring managers perform in interviews to avoid negative glassdoor reviews (and to have any shot of hiring the best candidates). If you lead a TA team that doesn’t keep objective track of hiring manager interview performance, you run a high risk of depressed hiring results and negative glassdoor reviews.
Tracking hiring manager performance alerts you to deficiencies, illuminates exactly what those deficiencies are, allows you to target training programs to remediate these deficiencies and helps avoid negative glassdoor reviews.
Candidate Feedback Can Avoid Negative Glassdoor Reviews
The cornerstone strategy that allows you to recruit to avoid negative glassdoor reviews is a regular candidate feedback program. I am not talking about surveys once or twice a year. This is better than nothing, but few job seekers can remember actual details of job searches across dozens of organizations, six months after the fact.
Leading organizations utilize constant, transaction-based feedback from job seekers, applicants and candidates to tie feedback to hiring stages. For example, once an applicant submits their resume, they get a pulse survey. Once an applicant is phone screened, they get a pulse survey. Once they complete an interview, they get a pulse survey. Once they receive an offer, they get a pulse survey. You see where I’m going with this. These surveys ask candidates for quick feedback at each stage, and it continues through the first year of employment.
Candidate feedback tells talent acquisition leaders what’s working and what’s not in their hiring process. It pinpoints the exact nature of each bottleneck. This feedback holds hiring managers accountable. It directs training efforts. It tells you the story behind your time-to-hire metrics. It tells you the story behind your declined offers. It exposes dark corners of your recruiting process that you would otherwise be unaware of.
Constant candidate feedback ensures that you’re not simply hearing only the very bad, or very good stories behind your team’s efforts. Constant feedback converts job seekers to fans. Think about it. Few candidates get asked what they think, so the act of asking is a huge boost for your employer brand and candidate satisfaction metrics. And of course, constant candidate feedback lets you recruit to avoid negative glassdoor reviews. It keeps them in house, where you can do something about it, both situationally (save the candidate) and systemically (fix your process).
