3 Ways Employee Testimonials Pump Up Recruiting

Would you ever buy a house without walking through it first? Do you think you could make a confident purchase if you weren’t even allowed to peek through the windows? Probably not. Yet that’s what you might be asking your job candidates to do if you don’t use employee testimonials in your recruitment marketing. Employee testimonials give your candidates a window to peek through to see if your company is a good place to work, and if the job you want to fill is right for them.

We know that modern digital consumer behavior includes active searches for reviews and testimonials during the decision-making process as people search for trust. This holds true for people researching job opportunities and employee testimonials are an easy way to nurture trust with job candidates. What does trust lead to? It helps you to develop relationships with candidates and convert interest into applications or permission to keep in touch.

According to LinkedIn's Ultimate List of Employer Brand Statistics, “Candidates trust the company’s employees 3x more than the company to provide credible information on what it’s like to work there.”

Get Short-Term Punch from a Long-Term Strategy

Employer branding with recruitment marketing is a long-term strategy for attracting and retaining best-fit talent, but here’s how you can get immediate impact from employee testimonials to pump up what you’re doing with recruiting right now.

1. Employee Testimonials in Social Media Posts

How many of your social media posts for recruiting say, “We’re Hiring”? If you’re just sharing your job posts you’re missing out on using social media to not only guide people to your jobs, but to attract a wider net of potential candidates who aren’t actively looking for a job.

​Create posts that include employee testimonials and you’ll get an immediate lift in your organic reach, especially if you encourage your employees to share with their personal social networks.

As you’re building your employee testimonial gathering process, you should include internal communications that help your employees to be better advocates, while stirring up the good feelings they have about you, their employer.

Your posts can guide people to a specific job, guide traffic to your careers page, or guide people to read a full employee experience story that springboards to your job listings.

2. Employee Testimonials on Your Careers Page

The need for employee testimonials and employee experience stories does not in any way negate the need for information about your company's benefits. Testimonials, however, give credibility to your promises through the voices of your current employees.

Use testimonials to show people what your benefits look like. What does flex time look like? What does professional development look like? Put “show” with your “tell” with employee testimonials.

Consider how you can sprinkle employee testimonials through your careers page content. Can it go on a sidebar? Can you slide in a section that has three testimonials with employee pictures? How about using a hover box with a short testimonial over an employee photo? Ask your web developer for ideas on what’s possible, then get those testimonials on your careers page.

3. Employee Testimonials for Job Postings

Your job descriptions may be published on boards and sites away from your careers page, so it’s more important than ever to make sure that you’re not just presenting candidates with boilerplate text. Try to weave a testimonial into the summary of the position. For job descriptions on your own website, it’s a little easier to slide a testimonial alongside a job posting.

When you interview employees to get testimonials, you’re going to learn about your employer value proposition. Take what you learn from these conversations and put employer value messages in your copywriting. When your message is about value, you have the opportunity to build trust with candidates and stand out from your competition seeking to attract the same talent.

Employee Testimonials Are a Two-Way Street

The surprising thing about gathering and using employee testimonials to strengthen your recruiting efforts is that you’ll do better at attracting the best-fit talent. You just have to start letting your employees do the talking.

Learn how to talk to employees and extract powerful testimonials from what they say about their experiences when you take my online course - Better Message. Better Talent Pool. Sign up for my blog to be notified when the course launches.