Who is the best advocate for your employer brand?

– Other than your company itself? –

It was great to have a conference in my home town Budapest on employer branding. It was a gorgeous, perfect spring day. So I went on my bike (unusual in Hungary) to the Corvin theatre where Hungarian organisers became quite emotional that the World Conference Employer Day was organised in Budapest in the place where the Hungarian Revolution began. And it came to me that we are on the edge of a revolution in employer branding!

“People trust people like themselves.” Source: The impact of blogs, word of mouth and social media. Forrester Research & Intelliseek, 2012

I loved the comparison made by Svante Randlert (co-founder of The Employer Branding Day) between booking a hotel and employer branding. You do not look on a hotel’s website but at reviews of guests to give you a more complete picture. So why would candidates believe what is written on career sites without at least checking Glassdoor or speaking to people they know who are working there?

Companies are basically a group of hopefully diverse people. They define who you are as a company. The corporations’ missions are not to define anyone, but to be a guideline for inspiration. Employees and ex-employees are your ambassadors and that is why you should encourage them to build their own views online, it is the non-anonymous and authentic insights (not simply sharing other peoples’ posts) which have the most influence and credibility.

Source: Holland Dombeck: Recruit like a marketer (SlideShare)

So, who will be building the next Glassdoor which will collect online authentic content by your own colleagues on topics related to your employer brand?

I got inspired on the topic. So more to follow, stay tuned…

 

 

Ilonka Jankovich is an angel investor, former serial entrepreneur, currently Venture Partner of the Randstad Innovation Fund (the corporate venture capital fund of Randstad).

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