How to Use Glassdoor Reviews in 2022 to Boost the Candidate Experience

It happens. On a random Monday morning, you decide to log in to Glassdoor, and then you see it: a huge negative review plastered on your page. At first, you might think “This is not redeemable.” Or “How will this affect the candidate experience?” While every employer in the world loves to receive glowing feedback on Glassdoor – the reality is quite different. The same way customers love to read the reviews on Amazon prior to making a purchase, candidates love to read reviews about a company they might join. And what happens when they read a negative review? The candidate experience will get compromised because they’ll start to feel hesitant about your company. In fact, the reviews candidates read about your company play a critical role in their decision-making process.

So how can you use Glassdoor reviews to ramp up the candidate experience?

What a great question! Let’s go over the 4 great ways together.

Unravel why existing employees may not be happy

Negative reviews don’t just find their way to your Glassdoor profile for no reason. There must be a good, valid reason why an employee (or former employee) felt tempted to leave a bad review. Why you may feel betrayed – it’s crucially important to learn why this employee decided to leave out their dirty laundry online for everyone to see. Once you dig into the reasons, you’ll learn how to salvage the candidate experience before it’s too late. But first – you need to dig into the underlying reasons why your employees are not happy. It could be because of the:

• Management
• Toxic work environment
• Company culture
• Working conditions
• Burnout
• Pay and compensation
• Lack of career growth

In fact, the best way to get an accurate response is by soliciting feedback from the employees themselves. Arrange private meetings, conduct surveys, or schedule one on one discussions with employees. Listen carefully to what they have to say and try to be empathetic. Give them a safe space to vent out their concerns and how they’ve been feeling during their time of employment. Only then, will you be able to take their feedback into consideration to boost the candidate experience. Let’s put this into perspective. Assume that all your employees are complaining that they’re never kept in the loop on any big updates or changes occurring in the company. This way, you’ll know that candidates will probably feel the same way too. Perhaps this could be a sign that recruiters or managers need to improve their communication skills and keep all employees – and candidates – in the know. By communicating with candidates in real-time throughout the hiring process and consistently looping them in on any updates – you’ll be improving their candidate experience before you even know it.

Don’t burn bridges – communicate transparently

You’ve probably seen this a lot: Companies responding diligently to every single negative review with a boilerplate response that is copied/pasted. How does this affect the candidate experience? Well, for starters, candidates learn a lot about your company from the way you respond to negative or positive reviews on Glassdoor. So if your responses to negative reviews are sharp, robotic, and impersonal – they’ll take it like your company doesn’t give its employees the time of day. To sustain a great candidate experience, you need to make sure that the way you communicate with candidates is fully transparent, personalized, and honest. You don’t want to come off as a company that can’t put together a tailored response. What you want to do is communicate in real-time with candidates and keep your responses transparent, proactive, and as humanly as possible. Don’t let candidates wait around for weeks just to get a cookie-cutter response. Instead, improve their candidate experience by personalizing their experience all throughout. Be specific in your responses and be fully transparent with candidates – they tend to appreciate that. One great way to do that is throughout the interview process. One of the main reasons why candidates experience a negative candidate experience is because recruiters weren’t really transparent with them throughout the interview process. They either vaguely respond to their inquiries, beat around the bush, or refrain from letting them know the next steps. This eventually makes candidates feel confused and uncertain of what to expect next – which may drive them to drop out of the hiring process due to a negative candidate experience.

Analyze the situation and take action fast

We know that receiving a flood of negative Glassdoor reviews can be overwhelming. But try not to panic. Look at this as an opportunity to take corrective actions and measures fast. The same way constructive criticism can help you improve, negative reviews on Glassdoor can do the same. If the majority of your negative reviews are about your work environment, career progression, or culture – don’t just sweep them under the rug. Be sure to analyze the issue at hand and take action fast, before it’s too late. While this may not obliterate the negative reviews on your Glassdoor page, it can still help you salvage the candidate experience. Perhaps a candidate read that existing employees complain about the work environment. Once you take the right measures to improve team synergies, the work atmosphere, and the company culture – candidates will clearly see that throughout the hiring process. This will simultaneously boost their candidate experience and re-instill their faith and credibility in your company.

Use feedback to improve your employer brand

After soliciting feedback from existing employees and truly digging into the root cause of their dissatisfaction – It’s time to use that feedback to improve your employer brand. After all, you don’t want to come off as an employer that doesn’t care about what your employees have to say. You want to come across to candidates as an employer that is continuously striving to grow and improve. Even if the Glassdoor reviews were left by disgruntled and angry ex-employees – they’re not all necessarily true. Our pro tip? Reflect that on your branded career page. Give prospective candidates a true glimpse into your company and work environment. Share authentic pictures and videos of your team and share heartfelt team testimonials. Let prospective candidates know and visualize what working at your company will be like. Only then will you be able to prove the negative reviews wrong and singlehandedly boost the candidate experience.

Bottom line

Many companies hate the fact that Glassdoor gives employees the green light to leave negative reviews. Don’t be that company! Use these negative reviews to polish and reshape your employer brand – and fine-tune the candidate experience as a result. Ready to recruit top talent seamlessly and craft a memorable candidate experience? Let’s get going! EVA-REC is an on-demand ATS that automates and improves the hiring process with AI technology. From small businesses to industry giants – we aim to offer fully customizable world-class features that help create a rich and immersive hiring experience for recruiters and candidates. With EVA-REC, companies can drive merit-based, objective, and fair hiring practices that minimize bias, without dehumanizing the hiring process.

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