How to Hack Glassdoor in 2022

Glassdoor can be a daunting prospect for many people and talent leaders. One bad review can quickly tarnish a prospective candidate’s perception of your brand and deter them from applying for or accepting a role at your business altogether.

Unsuccessful candidates can sometimes become bitter and review your organization in a negative light. Past employees might do the same if they left on bad terms. 

But businesses often become too preoccupied with what can go wrong on Glassdoor, rather than thinking about what can go right.

With research finding that Glassdoor has 67 million unique visitors every month, can your business really afford to shy away from the opportunities that Glassdoor has to offer?

In fact, Glassdoor can be a really useful tool once you learn how to use it. Here are some top tips on how to succeed using Glassdoor in 2022: 

Deliver an Exceptional Hiring Experience

The first tip is an obvious one. It goes without saying that if you want exceptional feedback from candidates on Glassdoor, you’re going to have to earn it. This means focusing on delivering an enjoyable hiring experience for candidates that goes above and beyond their expectations. 

Unfortunately, it’s common for many businesses to invest the bare minimum into recruitment when it comes to interviewing and communicating with candidates.

The feedback provided post-rejection is usually generic and the time candidates have set aside for the process often goes unappreciated. 

These trends should be reversed. For a start, ensure that your job descriptions are engaging, informative and primed for inclusivity.The interview processes and questions should be shaped by your values, setting candidates up for success, not tricking them into failure.

Even if a candidate is unsuccessful, dedicate time to providing actionable and insightful feedback for them to understand exactly why they didn’t make it and how they can improve next time.

Ensure your candidates feel respected, have a clear understanding of what to expect and find value in the experience regardless of how it turns out.

We know from experience that these small details don’t go unnoticed by candidates and they’re often mentioned in the feedback received both privately and through Glassdoor. 

Pay Attention to What Your Employees Are Telling You

Another common reason why hiring teams often fear Glassdoor is because they’re concerned about what their past and present employees are going to say about what it’s like to work at the company. After all, Glassdoor wasn’t created to share only positive reviews, it was created to share honest ones. 

However, if you find yourself fearful of using Glassdoor because of what might be shared by individuals, this highlights a more deeply-rooted problem with the processes and environment being experienced by your team, not the platform itself.

If you’re predicting certain negative comments or responses to surface in Glassdoor reviews, then you’re likely already aware of these issues and your energy would be better spent facing them head-on. 

On the other hand, if you can’t anticipate what your team will say in their reviews, then that’s a clear sign you’re not listening to your employees enough.

Implementing regular feedback cycles such as engagement surveys and welcoming honest feedback will provide employees with the opportunity to voice their concerns and recommendations privately, allowing you to have these conversations before they’re shared with the world online. 

Bake Glassdoor Reviews Into Your Onboarding Plan

One of the biggest challenges of using Glassdoor as a small business is acquiring enough reviews to build trust around your employer brand. 

Most candidates won’t go out of their way to leave feedback on a site like Glassdoor, despite the incentives the platform provides to do so. Even if your new employees have had their most positive hiring experience to date, the likelihood of them going straight to Glassdoor to share the news is low. 

But that isn’t to say they aren’t willing to share their experiences. Most of the time they just need prompting, and this is an opportunity commonly missed by hiring teams. 

Prompt new employees to leave their honest review of your hiring process on Glassdoor as part of their detailed onboarding plan. This means that you can nudge them to discuss their experiences at just the right time when their hiring experience is still fresh in their minds.  

Set Up Routine Touchpoints 

But it isn’t only the hiring process you want people to review. You want prospective candidates to find out what it’s like to actually work at your business too. This is achieved by encouraging existing employees to leave a review of their experience at the company. 

There are two mistakes that can be made when doing this, though.

Foremost, some hiring managers will dive straight in and ask new employees to do this too early, at which point they probably won’t have as much genuine feedback to offer. Also, some hiring teams will be too forceful with their request, which can result in employees leaving inauthentic reviews. 

Of course, leaving a Glassdoor review about an employer should be a choice, not an obligation. But, there’s no harm in encouraging your team to do it. 

This can be accomplished by setting up touchpoints for employees who have worked at the business for certain periods of time. Encourage them to leave their feedback about their experience to date.

Communicate the Value of Leaving Reviews 

Another challenge is that time-pressed employees and candidates often won’t recognize the value of leaving a Glassdoor review about your company. To them, it might seem like a mundane task, and one with no strategic value. 

However, this isn’t true. Recruiting the best talent is essential to driving growth and results within your organization and Glassdoor reviews help companies resonate with this talent. According to a Glassdoor survey in 2019, 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.

Building a strong portfolio of Glassdoor reviews is an effective way to build this employer brand and attract these candidates. 

It’s valuable to communicate this with your team and prospective hires. For instance, when requesting  employees review the company, communicate the value in hiring this talent and how it can aid the company in achieving its ambitious objectives.

When asking candidates, it might be worth explaining how their feedback can help other candidates when deciding whether to apply for certain roles and how to prepare for interviews. 

Takeaways

Glassdoor, whilst daunting, is an opportunity growing businesses can’t afford to neglect. With millions of job seekers resorting to the platform for insights into what it’s like to work for certain companies, ignoring Glassdoor could be costing you exceptional candidates. 

But if you want to capitalize on the value Glassdoor can bring for your employer brand, you’ll need to put in the work. This means delivering an exceptional candidate experience, building a fantastic working environment and finding the most effective and appropriate ways to encourage feedback. 

Like most employer brand projects, it won’t be easy. But it will be worthwhile. 

Authors

Thomas Forstner

Thomas is Director of People & Talent at Juro – a contract software platform on a mission to help the world agree more – where he is building a human-centric, scalable People & Talent function from the ground up. Tempo’s annual poll recently rated Juro as London’s best startup to work for.