How do you leverage employee advocacy and testimonials to enhance your candidate experience and engagement?

Employee advocacy and testimonials are powerful tools to attract, engage, and retain top talent in the competitive market. They can showcase your employer brand, culture, values, and benefits, and build trust and credibility with your candidates. But how do you leverage them effectively in your full-life cycle recruiting process? Here are some tips to help you.

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you launch any employee advocacy or testimonial campaign, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Do you want to increase your talent pool, improve your quality of hire, reduce your cost per hire, or enhance your retention rate? How will you track the impact of your employee stories on your candidate journey, from awareness to application to offer acceptance? Define your goals and metrics upfront, and align them with your overall recruiting strategy and business objectives.

Add your perspective

2 Identify and empower your advocates

Your best advocates are your current employees who are happy, engaged, and passionate about working for you. They can share their authentic experiences and insights with your potential candidates, and inspire them to join your team. To identify and empower your advocates, you need to create a culture of recognition, feedback, and appreciation, and provide them with the tools and incentives to spread the word. You can use platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, or Indeed to collect and showcase your employee reviews, ratings, and testimonials, and encourage your advocates to share them on their social media networks. You can also create a referral program that rewards your advocates for bringing in qualified candidates.

Add your perspective

Sajithkumar ⚡️ Swaminathan

Hands on Talent Acquisition Expert | Employer Branding & Recruitment Analytics | Driving Diversity & Innovation in Hiring | LinkedIn Top Voice | 1.4+ million views from a single LinkedIn post
Report contribution
Identify your advocates: Start by identifying the customers, employees, or partners who are already advocating for your brand. Look for individuals who have positive experiences with your product or service and are willing to recommend it to others. Reward your advocates: Offer rewards or incentives to your advocates for their efforts. This could be anything from discounts or coupons to exclusive content or access to new products. Engage with your advocates: Keep your advocates engaged and informed by regularly communicating with them through newsletters, social media, or events. Ask for their feedback and involve them in product development and marketing decisions.

Like

3 Create and distribute engaging content

Your employee advocacy and testimonial content should be engaging, relevant, and diverse, and reflect your employer value proposition (EVP). You can use different formats, such as videos, blogs, podcasts, webinars, or infographics, to showcase your employee stories, achievements, challenges, and opportunities. You can also highlight your culture, values, mission, vision, and social impact, and how they align with your candidates' aspirations and motivations. To distribute your content effectively, you need to use the right channels, such as your career site, social media platforms, email campaigns, or job boards, and tailor it to your target audience, persona, and stage of the candidate journey.

Add your perspective

Brianna Blust

Storyteller | Problem Solver | Inclusivity Champion | Employer Branding Leader
Report contribution
Work with your employee advocates to brainstorm engaging content formats, topics and assets. If you're able to co-create content themes with your partners, getting their input on what matters and what they're drawn to, it's more likely they'll utilize the assets you create! Additionally, one thing we're working on right now is encouraging our advocates to personalize content. While we do have an employee advocacy tool, the impact comes in when employees share posts along with their own thoughts / highlights - not just copy + pasting exactly what's been provided.

Like

4 Solicit and act on feedback

One of the best ways to enhance your candidate experience and engagement is to solicit and act on feedback from your candidates and employees. You can use surveys, polls, interviews, or focus groups to gather feedback on your employee advocacy and testimonial initiatives, and how they influence your candidates' perceptions, expectations, and decisions. You can also use analytics and data to monitor and evaluate the performance of your content, channels, and campaigns, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your approach. By soliciting and acting on feedback, you can improve your employer brand reputation, trust, and loyalty, and optimize your recruiting outcomes.

Add your perspective

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

Add your perspective

Derrick S.

Driving Talent Acquisition & Championing Workforce Development for Tomorrow's Workforce
Report contribution
To stand out in a competitive job market, building trust through employee advocacy is crucial. Be more than just honest and transparent- create a mentorship program, host workshops, or donate to social causes that align with your potential candidates' values. Think of it like adding extra sprinkles to your ice cream sundae- it takes your candidate experience to the next level. By leveraging employee advocacy and testimonials to highlight these initiatives, you can build a genuine and engaging candidate experience that attracts the best talent. It's like adding bacon to your burger- it just makes it better. #employeeadvocacy #candidateexperience #trustbuilding

Like

How do you leverage employee advocacy and testimonials to enhance your candidate experience and engagement?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Define your goals and metrics

2 Identify and empower your advocates

3 Create and distribute engaging content

4 Solicit and act on feedback

5 Here’s what else to consider

Full-life Cycle Recruiting

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

More articles on Full-life Cycle Recruiting

More relevant reading