Employee Voice in Recruiting: Your Strongest Tool

Companies are clamoring for cybersecurity, cloud and software development talent. They’re pulling out all the stops to secure the best tech talent. If you’re hoping to ride your strong online presence or brand to win over candidates, you’re selling yourself short. You need to tap the power of employee voice in recruiting to attract top talent. 

As your advocates, employees can champion the company’s culture, work environment, strategic goals and mission to potential candidates. Their experiences and authentic stories will provide insights to job seekers.  Let’s look at how talent acquisition managers and HR leaders can empower their current employees to be the strongest advocates of the company’s brand. We will also explore strategies for using employee storytelling and how to use employee voice to supercharge your recruitment efforts.

The Power of Employee Voice in Employer Branding

Employee voice is a powerful tool for branding in the tech space.  A lot of candidates consider an employer’s brand and reputation before applying for a job. They typically look at the company’s reviews, testimonials and ratings on the careers page and on major job boards and review sites. 

Employee stories, across various touchpoints, can provide unique and refreshing perspectives to candidates and drive up talent by 60%. They inform candidates about the company’s work culture and environment, which shapes their perception of your organization.

Job seekers listen to insiders and the real people on the ground. These are employees, not management or leadership. Employees live and breathe the company’s culture, and they’re seen as credible when talking about work culture and conditions. Authentic employer branding can help you attract top candidates and ultimately reduce hiring costs. 

Encouraging Authentic Employee Storytelling

Candidates crave unpolished, authentic stories from real employees.  Here’s how to encourage employees to share their company experiences with potential candidates:

• Create a psychologically safe space for team members to communicate openly, express themselves and share their work experience.
• As part of employee advocacy, allow your staff to share quality content to increase brand awareness and attract talent.
• Use different storytelling formats, such as blog posts, videos and social media reels.
• Highlight the perspectives of employees in different roles across various departments.

As employees share stories, it’s crucial to maintain a balance between professionalism and authenticity. 

Leveraging Employee Stories Across Recruitment Channels

Like most recruiters, you source and find tech talent from different places. Here’s how to effectively use stories on various recruitment channels:

• Company career site and job postings: Post recent employee stories on your career page, or add them to your job listings.
• Social media pages: Gather and post employee testimonials on your social media pages at least once or twice a month.
• Employer review sites: Encourage your team to leave honest reviews about the company’s culture, their work experience and what they think about leadership.
• Recruitment events and job fairs: Send your most valued employees to job fairs, where they can interact with job seekers and share insights about the company.
• Employee referral programs: Ask your employees to refer any competent candidates they know who might be a cultural fit.

Measuring the Impact of Employee Voice on Recruitment

As you amplify employee voice in recruitment, track your employee branding strategy. This will allow you to know whether your employee storytelling is effective.

Key Metrics to Measure Employee Voice in Recruitment

As a recruiter, these are metrics you need to track:

• Employee net promoter score:  Based on a 0-10 rating, this metric measures employee engagement and loyalty toward a business and the likelihood they will recommend their employer as a good company to work for.
• Candidate engagement: Engagement is the level of interest and interaction candidates have with the hiring team. 
• Conversion rate: This refers to the percentage of candidates who progress from one phase of recruitment to the next — for example, from phone screening to interview.
• Time-to-hire:  It measures the number of days between a candidate applying for a job and accepting a job offer. A faster time-to-hire can improve candidate experience.
• Employee satisfaction rates: This metric measures whether employees are happy with working conditions, salaries, benefits and company policies.
• Employee referral rates: It’s the percentage of new hires who join your company through employee referrals. A higher referral rate suggests a stronger employer brand and highly engaged employees.
• Social engagement: The number of potential candidates who engage with the company on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and share their sentiments.

Overcoming Challenges and Best Practices

Using employee storytelling to champion your company has challenges. Here’s how best to address them:

• Ensure employee stories capture your company’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Maintain a consistent brand message without muffling individual voices.
• Learn from negative employee experiences or feedback.
• Strike a balance between the information you reveal and the company’s privacy.
• Encourage employees to brainstorm and come up with fresh, relevant content.

For example, Cisco’s employer branding hinges on authenticity. The company encourages employees to share real stories about working at Cisco and amplify them on social media, the company’s blog and its careers page. The employee-generated content provides an unfiltered view of the company’s culture. Netflix uses social media and podcasts to highlight employee experiences while maintaining a consistent employer branding message to attract top talent.

Empowering Employee Voice for Recruitment Success

Employee voice can amplify employer branding and supercharge your recruitment. Whether shared on social media or your career website, authentic employee testimonials and real stories from your team help candidates understand what to expect from your company. 

Are you using employee storytelling for recruitment? You’d better be. Turn up the employee voice to make it a core part of your hiring strategies, and your company will become a magnet for top talent.

Key Takeaways:

•  Adapt your employees’ narratives to different platforms, and maintain consistency when telling stories.  
• By making employee stories part of your branding, you can reduce turnover rates and cut hiring costs.
• Metrics such as employee net promoter score and engagement help you track employee voice in recruitment.