Article Originally Posted on RecruitingReach.com

A Blog that Caters to the Marketing Aspect of Recruiting

If you’re in the recruitment business you’re well aware of the perception that comes with your job. 

As we’ve touched on before, recruiters can sometimes get a bad rap. People feel slighted when they spend time interviewing and working with recruiters and the effort proves to be fruitless. Of course this can turn a few people a little bitter, and with review sites like Yelp available and massively popular it gives them a space to anonymously vent; and in marketing “anonymous” is never a good thing.

Being on Yelp daily is a good thing for two reasons:

• It helps you monitor the perception of your company through the words of the people who have had experiences with it. If someone posts a scathing review you can then, as a representative of your company, comment on their review in the hopes that you can either make amends with the reviewer or even apologize and earn another chance to work with them to make things right.
• Being proactive with Yelp can put you on the offensive and embrace the exposure positive reviews can give you. People use Yelp for almost everything nowadays, including restaurant reviews, retail store reviews, and yes, even companies they are interviewing with.  People don’t necessarily trust what companies say about themselves anymore, but they do trust what others have to say about companies. Why not embrace this and ask people with positive experiences to write a review on behalf of your office?

So what should you do to get the most out of Yelp?

First off, don’t offer any sort of reward or compensation to write a review on your company’s behalf. Not only is it unethical but it destroys the whole point of Yelp. If Yelp had only positive reviews, how would you know what restaurants to avoid? LinkedIn offers up the functionality to request recommendations, which has become a staple to recruiters, and there's no reason Yelp can't be the same. "Have something nice to say? Review us on Yelp!"

I can’t tell you how many times we get candidates asking how they can thank us or “return the favor” after getting them their dream job. Typically we suggest LinkedIn recommendations, Video testimonials, or Yelp reviews.

The point I’m trying to make is that Yelp is a double edged sword; it can both hurt and help you. The trick is to provide a service where people can’t possibly say anything bad about you, but no company is perfect. What you need to make sure of is that you are monitoring your company’s presence on Yelp regularly, otherwise you may never know what people really think of you.