How Important are Anonymous Employee Reviews for Hiring?
As human beings, we are often cautious. We don’t often like being the first to try something. We might hesitate to give something a go if the people we trust tell us it’s no good. But the opposite is also true: if a friend recommends a restaurant, movie, or company to try, we’re significantly more likely to give it a shot. We also tend to avoid the things our peers tell us are bad.
Online shopping, ordering, and scheduling has made it more difficult to rely on only our friends’ and family’s advice when it comes to purchases and decisions. Third-party review sites for software, services, and companies we consider working for have become a critical part of many of our decision-making processes.
Like it or not, the importance of reviews is becoming increasingly important. If you’re skeptical, just look at your own digital behavior:
When you’re going out for a meal, do you check out the reviews on Google or Yelp beforehand?
Have you ever decided against buying a new gadget on Amazon if there were fewer than ⅘ stars?
Would you consider skipping a movie if it scored poorly on IMDB?
It’s not that hard to make the leap to a company, where one with only negative reviews would make you exercise caution. Research conducted in 2021 showed that 1 in 3 people have turned down a job offer because of bad online reviews. People are more likely to trust third-party review sites because they seem impartial.
If you have no company reviews, or more than a few negative reviews, don’t sweat. In this article, we’re breaking down why reviews are crucial for your brand, how to get them, and what to do when you get negative ones.
How candidates use reviews to assess your company
As we’ve discussed in other articles, company culture and values are more important than ever in attracting remote candidates. While showcasing your values as a leader are an integral part of attracting the right talent, reviews from the people that work for you are equally so. Anonymous reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed help candidates vet companies before accepting a job there.
At the end of the day, this is actually a good thing. You want a candidate to be thorough and critical in their research of a company, because it gives you a hint as to the way they’ll approach their work if and when they join your team. Candidates that do the work upfront to evaluate the type of company they want to work for will also be more likely to stick with you, even through difficult times that will surely come for all startups.
Job seekers primarily use sites like Glassdoor before accepting a job offer to assess your company on the following aspects.
Of course, every candidate will have a different criteria for the company they join, and a different prioritization of these areas. But overall, these criteria provide a holistic picture of what your company is like to work for. In fact, these criteria are what our experienced recruiters used to screen candidates to ensure there’s a strong fit with clients.
The number and quality of anonymous employee reviews matter
If there are no reviews, it can cause high-quality talent to skip your company. If there’s overwhelmingly bad reviews, they may avoid you.
But you also don’t want reviews that are overly positive or vague. Believe it or not, this can actually be a red flag to candidates, and make them thing employees were forced to share them.
Again, think of your own response to a product that has only 5-star reviews, and not a single low one. If your spidey senses start to tingle, you’re not alone. There isn’t a product or company on earth that someone hasn’t had a bad experience with, and we know from research that people with bad experiences are far more likely to leave a review than if they had a good one. Ever heard the saying, “A customer who has a bad experience will tell 10 people; a customer who has a good one may tell 1”? This actually holds pretty true in real life, so not seeing a negative review might actually do more damage than you think.
In general, and contrary to what you might think, honest, open reviews are better - even if they aren’t all 5 stars. Actually, especially if they aren’t all 5 stars. When it comes to negative reviews, it’s all about how you handle it.
What to do if you get a negative company review
First, don’t panic. Trying to find the culprit in your company or agonizing over what it will do to your recruitment efforts won’t fix it. Instead, take a moment to read it. Review it with your leadership team. It may make sense to have a formal policy around how you handle negative reviews, and the first one you receive is as good a time as any to start.
Once you understand the review, work on crafting a response. A thoughtful response includes the following elements:
Thank the reviewer. Let the anonymous reviewer know you’re grateful for their feedback. While it may bring you down at first, negative feedback helps you improve in the long run.
Let them know what you’ll be doing to resolve it. Depending on the situation, your resolution steps will vary. But give them 1-2 sentences on what you’ll be doing to make sure it gets resolved doesn’t happen again.
Give them an opportunity to reach out. While many reviewers won’t take this opportunity, it makes them feel heard. You can always direct them to their HR manager (if you have an HR department) where they can privately discuss the issues they’ve experienced.
Be reviewed internally. Make sure you actually follow up on the issue internally and take steps to correct it. Ideally, you’ll also want to mention the improvements you’ll be making to the broader team (just don’t mention the review).
On the other side, don’t overdo your response. You want it to be authentic and honest. Make sure you don’t:
Overpromise. Lofty, vague promises about sweeping changes to the organization likely won’t happen (and they likely aren’t necessary). Provide resolution steps that are justified given the severity of the problem.
Exaggerate your emotional response. Let them know you’re grateful for the feedback and that you’re sorry they had that experience. No need to dwell or drag it out - it may come across as feeling hokey or inauthentic.
Try to respond to the reviewer as soon as you can. It shows you are monitoring these sites and that you care about the experience people have at your company.
Here’s an example of a Glassdoor response from the CEO of Eventbase that ticks all the boxes:
What to do when you have no anonymous employee reviews
Another issue that companies may have - especially smaller ones - is a lack of reviews. If you only have a handful of employees, it can be difficult to encourage reviews. For one, it’s a small pool of available people to write them. Second, it reduces the feeling of true anonymity: if there are only 5 employees, it’ll likely be pretty obvious who’s submitting the review.
If you have no reviews, there are still ways of communicating your culture to prospective candidates.
Give employees alternative ways of assessing your company
In Public Relations, there’s a standard practice when it comes to handling negative press: get out in front of the message and own it, or someone else will do it for you.
The advice can be applied here, too. If you have an early interview with a candidate who you’re interested in moving forward with, bring up the lack of reviews. Let them know you’re a small team, or you haven’t prioritized reviews to date. And then give them alternative ways to vet your company culture.
You can let them know you’re happy to have them reach out to current or past members of your team, and even provide the email addresses of a few team members to simplify the process for them. This will reflect well on you, and ultimately help negate the lack of reviews online.
How to encourage positive reviews
When it comes to reviews, the number and recency of reviews matter. It’s not enough to get a whole host of reviews once, then forego any future ones. Instead, make review collection a part of your internal culture.
Be honest and transparent about culture upfront, during the hiring process
It’s actually not just about requesting reviews. It’s also about delivering on the day-to-day work experience candidates you hire expect.
During interviews, don’t promise on things you can’t deliver. If you’re a scaling startup, it’s probably not realistic to offer regular 1:1 time with the CEO for mentorship. Instead, it might be more sensible to offer an annual professional development fund they can put toward courses or certifications of their choice.
Be transparent and honest about company culture. If your startup often works long hours around the end of sprints, let candidates know. If there’s limited structure because you’re growing, you should let them know that, too. It’s better to be upfront with candidates, and they can make an informed decision about joining your company, rather than a bait-and-switch feeling after they join a company and the culture is far off from what was promised.
Getting into a rhythm of collecting employee feedback encourages a culture of transparency, and shows employees that you appreciate and respect their individual experiences.
Make feedback collection part of your culture
As mentioned, recency is also an important factor in reviews. So you want to ideally have a regular cadence of reviews being posted. One way to do that is actually to encourage internal feedback first.
Circulate surveys internally every 6 months or so to collect feedback. This will give you a pulse of where things are at in the company and within each department, and if there are areas of improvement. It can also help you determine whether you even want staff to be leaving reviews right now - if there are some issues that need to be addressed first, this can be a good time to do it.
During these feedback collection sessions, lightly recommend your staff leave public, anonymous reviews publicly. Pick a single site (again, Glassdoor is most common) so the “ask” to staff is clear.
There are other benefits of getting into a rhythm of collecting feedback. It will encourage a culture of transparency in your organization, and make it clear that you appreciate and respect the everyday experiences of your team.
Actually address feedback you receive from staff
Addressing feedback is going to be one of the best ways to encourage more reviews - and it’s also going to increase the odds that those reviews are positive. Start by coming together with your leadership team and discussing the feedback. The focus should be on developing your leadership team so they’re aware of how their direct reports are feeling, and equipped to address negative feedback.
Then, bring up anonymous reviews and results from your internal surveys at all hands meetings. Share how you plan to address it, and actually follow through. You can check the pulse again with a followup internal survey and see if you made progress.
Make bonuses, promotions, and salaries fair and equitable
A lot of negative reviews come around mismatches between expectations and reality with company culture. Be transparent around how people can move up in the organization. Make sure to run regular performance reviews - at least annually - so staff knows where they stand. If bonuses are part of the compensation package, make sure it’s clear how staff earn their bonus.
Ask for unsolicited reviews to be made digital
Imagine you bought a product and were unhappy, so you reached out to customer service. The rep you spoke with immediately refunded your order, and offered you a discount code for your next purchase before making sure your needs were met.
If they asked you to leave a review, would you do it? Chances are, yes.
If you have a great 1:1 with a staff member who says they love working for your company, this is a good opportunity to ask them to leave a review. Let them know they only have to do it if they feel comfortable. In all areas, solicited reviews are much more common and likely to be left than unsolicited ones. And if the employee is truly ecstatic to be working for your company, they’d probably be happy to leave you a review!
How you can use reviews to improve company culture
As a tech leader, you know the importance of negative feedback. Constructive feedback from users and employees alike help to refine a product, system, and process. As such, its a good practice to pay attention to internal reviews as well as those on third-party sites.
Glassdoor has an option to claim your company profile for free. When you do this, you can get notifications when new reviews are left, making it easy to stay on top of activity.
Collect the feedback, and review it with your leadership team on an ongoing basis. Develop a process to act on the feedback, including who will respond to the reviews, and how you’ll address it internally. Importantly, don’t play the blame game - the negative review isn’t the fault of any one manager, and it isn’t worth dwelling on the cause. Instead, focus on the solution.
Bring up negative feedback at all-hands meetings and how you’ll improve. Share your progress regularly so staff knows it’s an ongoing investment in company culture. And make sure to stress that you’re thankful for the feedback.
Summary: Prioritizing company reviews to attract talent
Anonymous employer reviews are an important component of a job-seeker’s process. And it’s actually an important way of gauging your company culture as you grow. For small companies without reviews, you can help candidates get a sense of your organization by providing the opportunity to connect with current and past staff. As you grow and gain more reviews, focus on how to get consistent reviews, and how you can boost positive sentiment. By soliciting feedback internally, addressing feedback, and developing your leaders, you’ll be well positioned for positive anonymous reviews that help you hire.
