Let’s Talk About Reputation in Recruitment
Squeaky clean or a bit rough around the edges, the reputation of candidates can vary widely, creating HR screening challenges for in-house hirers and recruitment agencies, as well as potentially even greater challenges for the businesses individuals are joining. In this article we’ll look at the importance of reputation in recruitment, and how you can be vigilant in preserving the reputation of your company or clients.
What is an online reputation definition? Online reputation management is essential for businesses looking to foster and promote a positive reputation for themselves online, on social media channels, search engines, review sites and forums.
In recruitment reputation is all-important, but it can be neglected at the early stages of hiring, sometimes leading to nightmare consequences for companies. To help you navigate this thorny topic, we’ll look at some online reputation examples, as well as:
01 - Why You Should Check Someone’s Reputation Online
Whether you’re hiring in-house or looking for quality candidates in recruitment, it can be difficult to know if the people you’re talking to are who they say they are. A small white lie on a CV is one thing, but if someone is concealing something more serious, it can have a hugely damaging effect on the reputation of your business.
Online reputation management, such as engaging directly with customers or conducting audit reports (see below), can help you to bolster a business’ reputation, but these activities tend to be proactive rather than preventative. The best step you can take in fostering and preserving a good company reputation is to ensure that the people you’re hiring—at leadership level in particular—also have a pristine reputation.
See it like a ripple effect. If a person manages to disguise or embellish things on their CV and at interview stage, and they go on to be a bad hire for the business, this can also impact on the turnover and morale of other employees, to the company work culture, and potentially to the reputation and profitability of the business as a whole
One of the most notorious online reputation examples that demonstrates the importance of preventative recruitment solutions is that of McDonald’s, who in 2023 made headlines for horrendous reports of bullying and harassment of workers by often more senior team members across many of their 1,450 UK outlets.
While this is an extreme example, it has since become clear that a toxic work culture was allowed to thrive in part because preventative recruitment solutions like social media screening and HR screening interview questions were not thorough enough to reveal the poor reputation of candidates who went on to work at leadership level.
McDonald’s is a cautionary tale of how reputation can be risked in the absence of comprehensive background screening. With a search tool like YOONO, you can research a candidate’s background and online presence in complete detail, allowing you to take these preventative steps that potentially save businesses huge amounts of business revenue, legal expenses and PR efforts.
02 - How to Conduct an HR Screening Process
In order to ensure a company’s reputation will be preserved, it is essential to conduct a thorough HR screening process when recruiting.
Each HR screening round listed below is useful in ensuring the reputation of the candidate is a positive one. It’s important to note that the sooner in the process you can research a person’s online reputation the better, as it will save you significant time, effort and cost as you proceed.
There are 6 key steps in performing HR screening, which are:
Review the CVs of each candidate.
Run a reputation report using an online search engine like YOONO background screening.
Conduct an initial screening interview, over video call or telephone.
If necessary, do online research, but note that a tool like YOONO will allow you to skip this step.
Conduct an in-person interview.
Conduct a final reference check.
Having performed all of these steps, in-house recruitment and recruitment agencies can feel confident that the candidates taken on by the business have good reputations, and will contribute to the positive reputation of the company as a whole.
03 - How to Conduct a Reputation Audit Report for Your Business
What is a reputation audit? A reputation audit report is an assessment of how an organisation is perceived by the public, including its customers and potential buyers, and also how its reputation is perceived internally and through stakeholder relations.
In other words, a reputation audit gives you the big picture of your business’ reputation, allowing you to identify and act on areas for improvement.
What are the 5 C’s of audit report research and writing? When writing an audit report you should aim to cover these 5 bases, which provide a structured format for dealing with any issues that might arise relating to reputational risk:
04 - Useful Recruitment Solutions for Preserving Reputation
Aside from writing a reputation audit, there are other ways to make sure your business’ reputation, and those of the clients you help in the case of recruitment agencies, remains intact, or is able to bounce back in a healthy way from reputational knocks.
These three areas of reputation management are simple ways to ensure that reputation is always at the forefront of your recruitment strategy, and as a key part of your wider business strategy:
Online reputation management
Today, almost every individual’s first point of contact with a business is likely to be online. Whether it’s following a brand on Instagram or checking out Trustpilot reviews before committing to purchase, a person will make a snap judgement about a business within a few seconds of searching them online.
With this in mind, it’s essential for companies to invest in online reputation management, from ensuring that search results are relevant and positive, to promptly responding to any negative reviews or feedback that may impact on employer reputation ranking.
Social media screening, online surveys and HR tech can be extremely useful in online reputation management, as well as using background checks and social media screening companies like YOONO to manage reputational risk at early-stage recruitment.
In-person reputation management
In a digital world, the power of face-to-face communication in reputation management is sometimes neglected, but it really shouldn’t be. You can build transparency and authenticity into your brand reputation with proactive reputation management in the real world.
This can be just as powerful for building up a company reputation at early stages through networking, sponsored events or expert-led seminars, as it can be for providing an honest and open impression in the aftermath of a reputation setback.
Open lines of communication with employees, stakeholders and customers
One of the biggest mistakes that recruiters and companies make when it comes to reputation? A lack of open communication between all parties can have a damaging effect on the reputation of both companies and individuals.
Keeping serious things secret will only serve to cause even greater consequences down the line, so it’s important that at recruitment stage and employment stage that everyone feels they can talk openly and honestly about any concerns or issues relating to reputation.
Conclusion: The Increasing Importance of Reputation in Recruitment
Assessing candidate reputation is becoming increasingly fundamental in an era when people are more likely to share more about themselves and their personal lives online.
Companies are increasingly more vulnerable to reputational risks from the people that they employ and Know Your Customer (or KYC) checks are only one way of mitigating that risk. Although KYC checks offer some sense of reputational security, these don’t cover everything an individual might be sharing about themselves on social media channels or elsewhere.
Candidates and job seekers can make dubious choices when it comes to sharing content through their own social media channels and more widely online. From posting party photos to using controversial language, or even engaging in questionable behaviour, while it can seem harmless at the time this can have an impact on their own professional reputation and the reputation of the companies they go on to work for.
But where to begin with researching potentially vast resources of information that exists about any one individual online? With YOONO’s discreet and smart background searches, you can delve into historic data about a person, from what they were saying on X (Twitter) a decade ago, to how they present themselves on their social media channels now, as well as other things that might impact on reputational risk, such as published media and whether the person is a PEP (Politically Exposed Person).
When it comes to reputation, why risk it when it can take only a couple of minutes to conduct a thorough YOONO report on a potential candidate? Try this handy tool here, and see for yourself!
