How Recruiters Can Use Indeed Company Reviews and Ratings to Improve Client Relationships
If crowdsourced product and company reviews and ratings are of use with the stuff we buy, such as on Amazon or Airbnb, it should especially be true of the companies we work for. Most of us have come to accept crowdsourced ratings as a way of life. Companies like Glassdoor and Indeed capture company reviews from current and former employees anonymously.
The Five-Star Company
Americans love rankings and competition because we are wired that way. It is why we have five-star hotels and five-star hospitals. Five-star has become the symbol of excellence.
Ratings can be challenging however, because the standard of perfection is in the eye of the beholder. The advantage with crowdsourced ratings however is that there is no implicit bias and it is strictly a numbers game based on the number of raters. One value added service a recruiter or staffing professional can provide to your clients is suggestions on how to optimize their company reviews and ratings and influence how their company is viewed on platforms such as Glassdoor and Indeed.
For example, a 1.0 rating for a company can be drowned out by 100 5.0 ratings. On the flip side, if there are few ratings, a low rating can kill a company. There are over 10 million ratings currently tracked in Indeed based on the latest data in the Insight for Work platform.
The Indeed Rating System
Indeed provides six separate ratings:
- Overall rating
- Job Work/Life Balance
- Compensation/Benefits
- Job Security/Advancement
- Management
- Job Culture
In addition, Indeed provides the company with the ability to create a summary and additional context to their company reviews. Note that Indeed provides no definitions to these ratings so the interpretation can be varied. A strong internal campaign can significantly improve the chances of a favorable rating among current employees.
Context is the Problem with Indeed Ratings
Indeed is great at helping job hunters to find potential companies to work for. You can search for a specific title and it will provide a list of companies with the overall rating.
There are several problems however with this data:
- Only the overall rating is shown – the five related ratings are not shown unless you individually go into each company. For example, if work-life balance is most important, there is no way to rank companies under that rating.
- The number of people submitting the rating is not shown. Thus, a company with two reviewers and a high rating may provide a false positive.
- The salary satisfaction rating is buried in the Salaries section and not shown as part of the Indeed ratings system. Further, salary satisfaction has its own survey count.
- There is no qualitative context about the rated companies. For example, you may want to work for a small company or a woman-owned company.
Getting Company Ratings in Context
Ratings are part of the overall hiring company analysis or what we call company intelligence. Further, companies are part of the overall context of the job search.
- What jobs is the company hiring for?
- Where are the jobs located?
- What industry is the company in?
- What are the other characteristics of the company?
Insight for Work helps hiring professionals provide their clients with real-time data on how they can best impact their company reviews and improve their overall rating. The data has been curated to allow you to paint a clear picture on how the company should focus their efforts and improve their chances of appealing to the ideal candidate.
Mini Case Study – Shopping for Computer Engineering Jobs
ABC Staffing Company is recruiting a new job for Ray Smith. Ray is a computer engineer who is looking for the right company to work for as a software developer. He wants to work in the Austin, TX and he wants to work for a software company. Culture and Work-Life Balance is most important to Ray – he is willing to accept a little less money for the right fit. He would prefer a small company rather than a large one but not a startup. Click on the image to see how we can use company reviews to find Ray the right company for which to apply.
- There are 46 companies that currently meet this criterion that are hiring.
- In prioritizing culture and work-life balance, nine of them have a rating for both of those criteria above 4.00
- Ray’s desire is to work for a smaller company, but not a start-up. We applied a filter to only get those companies that had more than 10 employees and less than 200.
- There are three that seem to rise to the top based on culture and work-life balance.
- PriServe Consulting rises to the top of the list, but there are only 15 employees.
- Spark Cognition may be the best one given they have 182 employees and fit the criteria.
Alternatively, recruiters can share this data to help companies on the lower end visualize how they stack up against other hiring companies. By simply encouraging more company reviews from current and past employees companies can shift the odds of finding a prime candidate like Ray Smith.
Helping Companies Optimize Employee Satisfaction Ratings
It would be beneficial to recruiters and staffing professionals to share their clients’ ratings and discuss how important these are in the recruiting process. Human Resources is typically the best role or department to launch internal efforts and campaigns to encourage employees to complete more and positive surveys on Indeed or Glassdoor. Since these reviews and ratings will help recruit top talent, it can easily become a company initiative. Different tactics can be used based on the company budget and resources available to execute, for example:
- For every review that is posted, the company will donate money to its desired charitable organization, or will provide paid time off if a certain percentage of employees post reviews.
- In order to get more positive reviews, HR may want to conduct an internal employee satisfaction survey to understand the opportunities for improvement, such as work-life balance, compensation, skills training, etc. and then develop, communicate and execute a transparent plan to work on these areas.
Summary
- Ratings are of limited value without context.
- Context can have many facets and should be personalized to the evaluator.
- The ability to dynamically use ratings based on these personal preferences is critical.
- Recruiting professionals can provide clients with rating standings and suggest strategies and tactics to get more positive reviews.
About Insight for Work
Insight for Work is a self-service analysis platform for the labor market. It combines data from job postings, hiring company profiles and ratings, compensation and benefit surveys, applicant and resumé profiles, and government agency publications with the power of the Microsoft® Power BI business intelligence platform. Instantly analyze occupation, industry, and company opportunities and trends to evaluate strategies and programs and prioritize resources.
