By Kevin W. Grossman, Glassdoor.com
I’ll go out on a “social” limb here and say that companies with good career opportunities and good workplace culture are those that understand and embrace marketing and have smudged glass doors.
No need to scratch your heads, especially if you’re a job seeker. Let me explain.
First, take a look at their company career page. Wait, they don’t have one? Then move along unless there’s another professionally compelling reason for you to stay.
For the many that thankfully do, is there anything on the page beyond job listings that gives you an idea of company culture? Look at the people pictures on their website – do they look like real people who really work for the company and not pretty model stock photos? Are there any video testimonials from real people who really work for the company talking about what it’s like to really work there?
Really. Happy (passionate and hardworking) employees make for great employment branding, customer service and ultimately overall product/service brand marketing. That also means it should be a mobile and social-friendly site.
And have you reviewed the company LinkedIn profile so you can see who you may know in the company, even if it’s a 2nd degree contact you might be able to get introduced to? You should make the time to do this because it’s still about whom you know.
In fact, you should research those organizations you’re interested in via all your professional networks of choice and find out who you’re connected to directly and even indirectly and what it is they’re saying about company (or not saying).
Find out as much as you can about who influences the applicant-selection decisions and then do your best to connect with them and share your interest in said job/s. Don’t overwhelm the contacts you know (or don’t know), but don’t underwhelm them either by simply applying on the corporate career page (with the pretty model stock photos).
Not everybody you find is going to be happy about where they work or worked. In fact, we live between two worlds of business today – one where passionate Zappos love-zapped culture-centric companies focus on the internal and external customer and strive to create an emotional connection between product/service and consumer.
And then you’ve got the other one. The one we’ve been working in for a long, long time – the business as usual, non-transparent, top-down bureaucracy, one where customer inside and out usually run a slow second to productivity and profits.
The one with the better alignment and balance is the one who understands and embraces marketing and that emotional connection.
Which brings me to the glass doors; use the site with this namesake for your company research – Glassdoor.com. Yes, we all want to see inside and understand what makes the companies we’re interested tick, and the quicker the better. Most job seekers don’t have a lot of time to do research and apply for the “good” companies, so the more transparent and real a company is, the easier the research and the targeting.
There’s no guarantee you’ll get the job and it’ll still come down to whom is the most qualified time and time again.
So one more thing that may help with your own marketing tipping point – the glass doors are two-way, so keep your online nose as clean as possible. You may have heard that hiring companies aren’t supposed to use the information they find about you in social media – but they do.
In fact, over 75% of recruiters and hiring managers always consider your social media presence in their hiring decisions, so it behooves you to keep your online noses clean.
Keep it real, but keep it clean, especially when you’re noses are pressed up against the glass.
Good luck.
Check out the latest Career Insider eNewsletter - September 29, 2011.
