The following is a guest blog post submitted by Greater Mankato Growth member, Lori Creighton of Homestead Media, LLC. The blog post is about how employee testimonials can help with the recruitment process.

Are you part of a Greater Mankato member business and have an interest in writing a guest blog for us? Send 500-800 words to [email protected] or reach out to Greater Mankato Growth with further questions.

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 growing interest as you 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.”

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. Stop Saying “We’re Hiring”

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 lead people to a full employee experience story that springboards to your job listings.

2. Build Credibility 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 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. Support Current 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.

Contact Homestead Media to get acquainted and talk about how employee testimonials can support what you’re doing with recruiting right now… and into the future.

About Homestead Media, LLC

Homestead Media helps companies get better results from recruiting by creating Recruitment Marketing strategy and messaging that engages job candidates and communicates your credibility as a good employer. Our clients come to us because they want to use the relationship-building power of story as a competitive advantage in the war for talent. We follow a storytelling approach to recruitment marketing because it’s the most effective way to connect with people so that you can attract attention and nurture candidate relationships, leading to good-fit hires. Learn more at https://www.homesteadmedia.net/