What better way to promote and market your company than through your employees’ voice. And what better channels than through their social media accounts. Obviously this only work’s in the organisation’s favour if the content that’s being shared shines a glowing light on them but it’s something companies are doing more of.
But just how much of an influence does employee advocacy have on recruitment? Our panel of 10 recruiting experts share their views
Leela Srinivasan
Employee advocacy can massively influence candidates’ awareness of your organization and interest in working for you. In Lever’s case, we’ve also found advocacy to positively impact the diversity of our workforce. Aided by a series of employee-written blog posts shared on our ‘Inside Lever’ blog as well as across LinkedIn and Medium, we saw our gender ratio improve to 50:50 men and women; meanwhile, 40% of our team is non-white. Both candidates and employees routinely cite their interactions with Leveroos, both digitally and in-person at events, as a factor in deciding to apply for and work at Lever.
Employee advocacy can massively influence candidates’ awareness of your organization and interest in working for you. In Lever’s case, we’ve also found advocacy to positively impact the diversity of our workforce. Aided by a series of employee-written blog posts shared on our ‘Inside Lever’ blog as well as across LinkedIn and Medium, we saw our gender ratio improve to 50:50 men and women; meanwhile, 40% of our team is non-white. Both candidates and employees routinely cite their interactions with Leveroos, both digitally and in-person at events, as a factor in deciding to apply for and work at Lever.Leela Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at Lever
Erin Wilson
As they say in marketing, it’s not what you tell your customers it’s what your customers tell other customers. This is no different. When your employees love where they work and share that experience openly and authentically it shows. The feeling is contagious. When someone has been influenced by a current employee and feels the advocacy is coming from a place other than the talent team, whose job is to advocate, it brings an unparalleled level of transparency and collaboration to the conversation.Erin Wilson is Founder and Talent Engineer at Hirepool.io
Amy Volas
It gives the recruiting function a much stronger foundation to work from, increases referrals and illustrates what a fantastic company you’re representing to intrigue people to want to learn more or tell their friends and family about how great of place your company is. Working from silos has been proven to not be effective and the ability to point to a positive employee experience, the chance to thrive and grow, strong leadership and all of the other benefits of employee advocacy make a tremendous recruiting difference.Amy Volas is Chieftain of Avenue Talent Partners
Lars Schmidt
Employee’s will have much less of that perceived slant, so if you find ways to effectively empower employees to share their unfiltered experience that can have a huge affect on recruiting.
Word of mouth is huge. Anything a recruiter says is going to be received with a perception of bias from candidates.Lars Schmidt is the Founder of Amplify
Chad MacRae
Then, some of those people that hear about it want to work for you.
You have fans, and when something good happens they tell people.
Chad MacRae is the Founder of Recruiting Social
Stacy Zapar
Our people are our greatest resource. They are our best storytellers for evangelizing the company, culture, values, work being done, etc. They are the most authentic voice of our employer brand. They also know people who have the right skills and will be successful at our company. Encourage and drive referrals through creative campaigns. Great companies have engaged employees who are natural advocates. Give them a platform and a voice and you’ll see the benefits!Stacy is the Founder of Tenfold & The Talent Agency
John Feldmann
If nurtured by management, employee advocacy can have an invaluable impact on a company’s recruiting efforts. Good employees know good employees, and employee referrals rank first in job performance and ROI. Therefore, turning top employees into brand ambassadors who will raise awareness for the company brand through social media and content generation will attract top talent to open positions, and convey employee satisfaction and a positive work culture.John Feldmann is a writer for Insperity Recruiting Services
Maren Hogan
Think about how you shop online. You probably surf the review section to get real insights on the product you’re interested in, right? Having employee advocates on your side is akin to having killer reviews on your company (hopefully). Not only do candidates have access to tools like Glassdoor and Indeed to see what past or current employees are saying about the company, they also have social media to see the “day in the life of” angle. Encourage your employees to contribute social media reviews to give candidates a raw insight on the company.Maren Hogan is CEO and Founder of Red Branch Media
Craig Fisher
Employee advocacy can have a great effect on recruiting if done properly. Most employers make the mistake of asking their employees to advocate, then either giving them no direction or suggestions of content, or feeding them only company-centric content and jobs to post. If employees only ever post content by and about their organization on places like Linkedin and Twitter, it seems contrived and job seekers will see through it. Better to encourage employees to share personal and work stories from their own point of view and to give them some great 3rd-party content from trusted publications to share with their networks to build trust and grow.Craig Fisher is Head of Employer Brand, CA Technologies, and Allegis Global Solutions
Will Staney
Employee advocacy is one of the most influential ways to boost a company’s recruiting game. Take a look at referrals. They’re #1 in almost every recruiting metric across the board. When employees speak out in favor of a company you’ll see friends, friends of friends, and others start to take notice of the company. When a friend tells another friend how awesome it is to work for a company, that friend wants to work there and so on and so forth. Will is the Founder & Principal Consultant at Proactive Talent Strategies
More on this topic at Employee Advocacy: The Ultimate Handbook.
