Social Listening

It’s a seductive prospect. That you can tap into the internet and understand more about your employer brand. That social media will help you appreciate what punters associate with a career at your firm, and that you can quantify their perceptions.

But there’s a problem. It doesn’t really work*.

Stopping and reflecting, you can probably see why. When did you last speak online and at length about your job? With a balanced picture of pros and cons, and what you expect to gain? And what about your next job or prospective employer? Reader, I prefer to imagine that you have better things to do.

And if people are talking about your employer brand in any volume, you need to rely on automation to sift the employer brand chat from the consumer, and to accurately assess the sentiment. That’s tough.

But, what this means is that there is a range of opportunities for employers.

For one, they can get out there and engage with said punters. Properly, not rolling out a stream of content that gathers no interaction. Actively, socially engaging with those that follow them or tweet about them.

For another, we can put ourselves in the punter’s shoes. If they dive in online, they’ll find a limited amount of useful information. We can make some good assumptions about their perception of your brand, or how it will be formed.

For a third, it means that your .jobs or /careers site will influence the perception – probably to a greater degree than you imagine. There’s the credibility, the they-would-say-that-wouldn’t-they? issue, but that’s hardly insurmountable.

If people aren’t talking about you, then you can start the conversation. And that’s a great opportunity.

* Of course, it can work. I have to have bold opinions, or they revoke my blogging licence. And I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. Where it does work well is where there’s already a strong employer brand (carefully established or lumbered with). It works well for graduate positions. There’s Glassdoor and other review sites and forums. And there’s always some chat that you can find. But it’s about going in with realistic expectations – and probably looking to other options for external perception.