How Your Online Reputation Can Prevent You from Landing Top Talent

Whether you like it or not, or whether you initiated it or not, your business is online. You may handle all of your daily business offline, but chances are, your customers are tweeting, posting and reviewing your services, products and customer care.

Now, when a job opens up with your company, interested job candidates are going to Google you, and they need to like what they see. That’s why it’s vital to your talent acquisition efforts to gain and maintain control of your online reputation. So where do you start?

TIME suggests that you should Google your company first. What you want to see in the first few results are your website (if you have one) and your social media accounts. However, if you’ve done no work to control your online image, you might see reviews from sites like Yelp or BBB. While the reviews may not necessarily be hurtful, there is no guarantee that they will always remain so impartial.

To attract top talent, look into creating your own website, even if you don’t handle any business online. This allows you to share your story, mission and services and products. Invest some time in social media as well. In doing so, job candidates can find out who you are and how your business works and runs on a more personal, informal level.

Also, utilize a free blog platform like Blogspot or WordPress to create posts about your business, services and products. This not only helps your online reputation but your search rankings as well. TIME states that in taking this next step you can “share your expertise and make yourself a trusted resource for your customers.”

Another way to attract top talent is to move your small business hiring efforts online. Advertising open opportunities online and creating company profiles on sites like Spark Hire exposes your business to a wider pool of job candidates. Plus, online recruitment helps you streamline the hiring process with the ability to store resumes in one place and conduct video interviews to screen job candidates.

Finally, analyze and asses what’s working for you. You can gauge your online reputation with free sites like Google Alerts, Tweet Beep, Naymz, Social Mention and MonitorThis as recommended by TIME. While using these sites may seem extremely foreign at first, over time you’ll not only learn to manage them but to make something of the results.

Controlling your online reputation is a vital step towards attracting top talent in your industry. By telling your story and managing your online presence to reflect your mission and values for your business, job candidates will not only become interested in your company but invested.

Do you think your online reputation can really hurt your business? Why or why not? Share now in our comments!