Up to 73% of the World's Most Attractive Employers (WMAE) say that employer branding is one of their top priorities. Do you know why?
It's because your reputation as an employer affects the type of candidates that apply for your jobs. If you've got a bad name for yourself, good candidates run for the hills.
But how do you convince new candidates that you're a great employer with a rock-solid internal culture?
Encourage your employees to become the mouthpiece for your firm with highly-relatable employee testimonials that build an emotional connection with potential top talent.
Not sure where to start or why employee testimonials are so impactful?
Read on to discover the power of employee testimonials along with how to leverage your employees to draw the very best job candidates on the market today.
Why Are Employee Testimonials So Important?
When 84% of people say that a firm's reputation as an employer affects their decision to apply for a position, you should take it seriously.
In this sense, the way you brand yourself as an employer and the reputation that precedes you will have a huge impact on your company's team.
The thing is, job candidates today want to work for companies that inspire purpose, value innovation, and offer professional growth. They're not scared of doing a little research to find these coveted positions.
A whopping 83% of job seekers look at reviews and ratings of companies before deciding where to apply.
That's why employee testimonials are so important.
Not only do employee reviews show potential candidates what you offer, applicants prefer to hear the lowdown directly from the horse's mouth. People tend to trust the voice of regular employees more than they trust what they hear from a CEO.
This means it's vital that you take control of the narrative.
You want to make sure your employees are singing your praises in glowing company testimonials, not bad-mouthing you on Glassdoor.
After all, negative employee reviews can seriously damage your chances of clinching a great candidate. A third of job seekers have turned down offers because they read a bad company review online.
Employee testimonials are a great way to leverage the trust that applicants have in regular employees to celebrate the positives of working for your company.
As a bonus, most candidates will look at a company's website to learn about its reputation, whereas only 20% will look at Glassdoor.
In this respect, strong employee testimonials displayed on your site will go a long way toward building a solid employer brand for the majority of new applicants. Even if you've had a few irate ex-workers post negative feedback on external sites.
Why Employee Video Testimonials are Winning
When recruiting, you want to make as many top candidates as possible aware of your excellent reputation as an employer.
Since people are twice as likely to share a video than any other type of content, it seems wise to present employer branding content in video form.
That's where employee testimonial videos come in.
Combining the shareability of video content and the trustworthiness of employees, a video testimonial can improve your reach to potential candidates and bolster your reputation.
Right now, we're in the social media era, and candidates are using social networks to learn more about company reputations.
Studies show that 34% of candidates will learn about a firm's reputation on LinkedIn, while 30% will turn to Facebook, and 15% explore Twitter.
What better way to spread your employees' love than with videos that can be shared on every one of these platforms?
With inspiring employee testimonial videos, you can create highly-shareable trustworthy social proof and leverage social media to spread that message.
What Every Employee Testimonial Video Should Include
Candidates applying for new jobs are keen to explore employer branding materials to find out about the values of your firm and the culture of your team.
Over a quarter of candidates look to employee testimonials for cues on how your team perceive the company's internal culture. They want to hear from a real person.
But what exactly should these employee testimonials include to get this message across and help candidates find exactly what they're looking for?
When researching a company, job seekers are most keen to find out:
- Information on the culture of the company and their potential colleagues
- Answers to why people want to work here
- Information about the company's values
- Details about the product or service you offer
In this sense, the types of "stories" your employee video testimonials include should cover these aspects.
Try creating employee testimonial videos that dive into:
- The company's vision and origin story
- How vision impacts and informs customers' problems
- Positive and unique features of work environment and culture
- Opportunities for growth
- External buzz about the company and industry that authentically matches employees' claims and work
What Type of Employee Testimonials Work Best? (With Examples)
Many recruitment videos focus on glossy production value and fail to plan a clear structure. Due to this, employees simply ramble and fail to connect with potential candidates.
Whether you're producing in-house or hiring a team, a powerful video testimonial will need a:
- Simple-to-follow structure
- Specific details woven into a relatable story
- Authentic positivity founded in a genuinely happy workplace culture
There are three main formats in which to present this information. Here's a breakdown of how to use these effectively.
1. Story Testimonials
An employee story testimonial is one of the most effective ways for a current employee to tell their story and frame it against the company's broader context.
Highlighting an employee's personal experience with a company provides an emotional connection, which is far more relatable.
Stories have a clear, easy-to-follow structure that keeps the watcher engaged and focused, while allowing the employee to unravel poignant company details in a captivating way.
For example, check out this story-driven employee testimonial for Salesforce, entitled "My Trailblazer Story."
Combining Stephanie Herrera's powerful, personal story with high-quality cinematic video production, this employee testimonial tells the story of overcoming adversity using Salesforce as a crutch.
The result shows Salesforce as having an internally supportive culture.
Pay particular attention to the power of a clear 'before' and 'after' structure. This helps your candidate see how their "problem" can be "solved" by working for your firm.
Tips for creating employee story testimonials:
- Decide beforehand if you're going to focus on only one individual employee, or a group of employees sharing one problem.
- Get as much detail as possible by asking specific questions. You'll use this detail to set the context for your viewer.
- Use a storyboard to break down the beginning (problem), middle (solution), and end (outcome with evidence).
- Inject the employee's own memories and stories, so it doesn't sound scripted.
2. Journey Testimonials
Journey testimonials are a fantastic way to show off opportunities for professional growth within your firm.
Showing the journey of how an employee moved from A to B, a journey testimonial is a great way to demonstrate your company's progressive values and supportive policies. Both inspirational and persuasive, this testimonial style appeals to candidates who are looking for growth in their careers.
Check out how Starbucks uses the journey testimonial format.
[Embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnHeu0aK3Eg&feature=emb_title]
This testimonial video uses previous interns to demonstrate the mechanisms and opportunities that allow graduated interns to progress into full-time positions.
Notice how each intern pinpoints something about the company culture that helped them climb the ladder to a full-time position, such as the 'Lunch and Learn' sessions.
Tips for creating employee journey testimonials
- Look for internal development journeys that are common among your employees and capitalize on what connects those development experiences.
- Show personal experiences from multiple employees to show that this is a typical path for your employees.
- Use employees in diverse positions so that you show the culture of development as a company-wide standard.
3. Question and Answer Testimonials
Rather than generic, long-form testimonials, why not stick to short, snappy employee testimonial videos that address a particular topic through a question-and-answer format.
By doing this, you can build a large portfolio of quick-fire testimonials that explore the multifaceted nature of your company from varying employee perspectives.
Ask employees what they enjoy best about their job, question them about specific processes, or delve into particular benefits.
Look at how internet provider, Spectrum, uses a library of employee videos to achieve this.
This library of videos covers everything from the application process to 'a day in the life' of different employees. Shot quickly on employees' phones, these videos don't feature high-quality production but are still very relatable.
Notice how new candidates can search for relevant employee testimonial videos by location, department, role, and topic.
Tips for employee question and answer testimonials
- Stick to one concise question per video.
- Make sure you cover each topic within different departments and across the various roles.
- Ask specific questions about the benefits that a candidate would be interested in.
- Create videos that address the applications process for potential candidates.
How to Collect an Impactful Employee Testimonial
It's pretty clear that employee testimonials are a compelling tool for attracting top-quality candidates. However, it can be challenging to know where to start when collecting those testimonials.
Knowing what to capture and how to do it makes the whole process a little easier. Here are some top video strategies.
1. Prepare but don't script
You want your employee testimonials to feel natural, but you don't want your staff to ramble.
Encourage your employees to prepare for interviews beforehand. Give them a basic idea of how the structure will play out, along with a topic to talk about.
But, it's also important that the video isn't scripted. A script will make everything feel stilted, giving the impression that the employee has been forced to say positive things by your company's PR agent.
2. Give them questions to answer
Sometimes it can be hard to reel off a speech, even if you have a story to tell.
Give employees questions to answer, as this often makes it easier to think of what to say without needing a script. Answering questions will also give a natural flow to the cadence of your employees' speech.
You can even ask the questions out loud when filming, and edit them out in the post-production stage.
3. Capture emotion
You want potential candidates to relate to your employees. Nobody wants to work with robots.
Get your employees talking about something that’s personal to them or a topic they’re passionate about. This helps to build emotion so that viewers can connect with the human element of your company.
4. Don’t overdo it
Keep your testimonial short and sweet.
Candidates won’t watch super lengthy videos. Instead, they’re looking for a snapshot into your firm’s culture.
Equally, shorter videos are far more likely to get shared on social media. Keep videos under three minutes and try to stick to one topic or story.
5. Create videos remotely
You don’t need to make a song and dance of the whole production.
Instead, have your staff shoot employee testimonial videos remotely. This is especially effective if your team works from home.
In fact, with experienced testimonial video providers like Testimonial Hero, it’s such an easy process that it only takes up 30 minutes of your employees’ time.
Conclusion
As you can see, employee testimonial videos are a powerful way to attract top talent. Not only can you show off the great benefits of your brand, you can create an emotional connection with potential candidates to demonstrate the positives of your internal culture.
Remember, it doesn’t need to be difficult to produce an employee testimonial video. As long as you have a clear structure and your employees are prepared, you can produce high-quality employee testimonials from wherever your staff are based.
If you have more questions about employee testimonials videos or you’re ready to shoot yours, get hold of the expert team at Testimonial Hero today.
