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Online reviews have gained momentum in the last decade. For one, job candidates often read reviews posted by other job applicants as well as by past and present employees, because reviews offer them a deeper insight into key employer-brand features. In fact, 65% of Glassdoor users read at least 5 reviews before forming an opinion of a company.

Online reviews are double-sided much like a coin. On one side are the job applicants who think of these reviews as informative and consider them the basis for making well-informed decisions. On the other, employers view online reviews with apprehension - often considering review platforms as a potential stage for disgruntled candidates, who could take out their frustrations and disappointments on their organization. 

Glassdoor Company Reviews

Glassdoor is one of the best-known and most frequently used online job search engines, with over 50 million monthly visitors and 70 million company reviews. The platform offers a level-playing ground for past and present employees as well as candidates offering their honest reviews about their experiences. In order to get published, these reviews need to be relevant and conform to the platform's guidelines - not much more is demanded, in terms of structure.

Glassdoor has a very strict moderation policy that helps them scrutinize reviews for authenticity and integrity before posting them. Additionally, Glassdoor has a strong transparency policy that has the platform actively working on fraudulent activities. The platform has very strong technical filters and algorithms to detect fraud - be it from the reviewer's end or the company's. Also, reviewer details are kept anonymous so the reviewer won't feel intimidated. The Glassdoor community is very dynamic, too. 

One of the platform objectives is to help prospective employees gather information about the new organization and accordingly decide whether to apply, and whether to join the company or not, creating a healthy and trustworthy platform for jobseekers.

For employers, too, it makes for a viable platform because the quality of candidates is ensured, through and through.

Do Glassdoor Reviews Matter?

When it comes to Glassdoor reviews, there's more to it than just employees and candidates having an opportunity to express and share their experiences, likes, dislikes, preferences, and more.

1. Reviews allow employers to engage prospective employees

Be it negative or positive, a review offers an organization the perfect opportunity to drive employee engagement by choosing to respond. As per a Glassdoor US Survey, candidates read at least six reviews before applying to a position, and about 62% of job seekers think that their perception of a company improved upon seeing the employer's response to an online review.

Employers get the ideal opportunity to address particular issues raised by the reviewer by responding and displaying their commitment to honesty, integrity, open communication, and more. It is the right avenue for them to grow their employer brand and showcase their goodwill towards authentic reviews, even if the said review is negative.

2. Glassdoor company reviews help companies strengthen their internal feedback system

Negative reviews can hurt an employer's brand, but they can also motivate organizations to improve their Candidate Experience internally, addressing the issue at its root. How, you ask? Through feedback.

There are fundamental differences between reviews and feedback. While reviews are comments left on a third-party platform like Glassdoor, Candidate Experience feedback is what the company's HR department gathers internally through feedback forms during or after a recruitment drive. It helps companies assess and evaluate their shortcomings and improve, and it's private, thus allowing organizations to improve on their performance and build their reputation. Feedback forms, unlike less-structured Glassdoor reviews, have the additional benefit of being created by the organization itself, allowing potential employers to ask every question they need to in order to identify the issues and properly address them.

There are tools to simplify the feedback-gathering process, and Starred is one of them. The professional feedback software for Candidate Experience surveys makes for a smooth experience as it helps recruiters gather the necessary information and translates it into actionable insights for them to apply.

3. Responding to negative reviews strengthens the brand perception

As per a Glassdoor Survey, it has been reported that at least 72% of candidates are likely to share online their negative Candidate Experience. By choosing not to respond to such negative reviews, companies create a void that's hard to fill, as time goes by.

For one, such negative responses can distance genuine candidates from applying to vacancies since at least 55% of people avoid a company when they read negative reviews. Second, if the potential candidates and employees are prospective customers, too, it could be the beginning of doomsday for the brand.

Therefore, although the communication ensuing from a Glassdoor review might not be as deep and personal as the one that a recruiter can have with a candidate who has filled in a feedback form, responding to negative reviews on the renowned platform can show to potential applicants that the employer in question truly cares about their people.

4. Multiple Glassdoor company reviews showcase employer brand strategy

When there are enough reviews about the company on a platform like Glassdoor, it acts like a creditworthy tool helping build a trust factor for the company. It shows a positive company culture and does a lot of good to build the employer brand.

Conclusion & TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

Glassdoor is a well-renowned review platform, used by million of candidates world-wide as a powerful research tool to learn more about an employer's brand.

Having multiple positive Candidate Experience reviews can help organizations engage prospective employees, and it points out healthy employer branding, but negative Glassdoor reviews can be a precious opportunity as well. In fact, if the organizations publicly respond to the negative Candidate Experience reviews on their Glassdoor page, they can show the potential talent they care about them, and, even more importantly, negative reviews can lead an organization's HR department to focus more on internal improvements through feedback.

Reviews are unstructured, so a negative one might not be sufficiently detailed for the organization to understand what their main weaknesses are, but feedback tools can come to the rescue, helping the organization's HR department collect the necessary information to identify the problem and providing the actionable insights they need to address it.

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