Increase Candidate Engagement + 6 Other Reasons You Must Collect Employee-Generated Content in 2022

Whether you’re a recruiter, a talent brand specialist, a marketer, or an HR assistant - you know that attracting and retaining the best talent in 2021 was not an easy task. The search, the stress, the competition, followed by the burnout was... a lot. After 2021 being coined the year of the quit (Business Insider), here we are in 2022 and the outlook look is, well, the same? But in times of great difficulty comes time of great innovation. How can companies stand out amongst the already-overcrowded lengthy list of organizations that are hiring?  Employee-generated content is key; although it’s been gaining interest and use in the past few years, in 2022 it should be the #1 priority for recruitment marketing teams around the world.

Our partners at Rally Recruitment Marketing define Employee-Generated Content (EGC) as “the images, videos, blogs and other content forms that your employees are creating themselves.” Holbein points out, “This content is often shared on employees’ social media accounts, and ideally (from an employer branding standpoint) offers insight into the employee experience at your company” (Rally Recruitment Marketing).

Employees are your most trusted asset to share insights into what it’s like working at your company. That’s why part of your approach in 2022 should consist of getting more employees to become brand ambassadors; this includes sharing their own content on their social media accounts for their networks to see.

Candidates are more likely to trust a fellow employees’ content than a company’s piece of content announcing a new job opening. Employee posts get reshared up to 24x more than a branded post (Post Beyond). Remember: Your employees are your greatest assets not only when it comes to cultivating a culture and improving sales but also when it comes to hiring. Plus, potential candidates are more likely to trust a piece of EGC shared by a friend or family member than a social post advertising a seemingly great job opportunity from a company. As Nielsen discovered, 92% of consumers trust online content from friends, colleagues, and family above all other forms of brand messages (Nielsen). 👍

Here are 7 reasons why you need to collect employee-generated content as an integral part of your recruitment marketing strategy in 2022.
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1. Increase Candidate Engagement‍

👉 Reason: Many candidates are numb to review-sites. When recruiters share EGC with candidates, it engages them faster and more deeply because it’s content they trust. Don’t be like everyone else and share an employee testimonial. Share a story to recognize employee success and differentiate your culture at the same time. That’ll get their attention! Confused by the difference between employee testimonials and employee stories? Here’s a breakdown.

💡 Tip: Everyone’s looking to have the best careers site to engage candidates. Some of our favorite sites include: ADP, Microsoft, and Visa. Collect and display EGC on your careers page to show a trusted, insider’s view of what it’s like to work at your company. You can also make sure all your employee stories have dedicated pages with links back to your careers page. On platforms like Goodseeker employee stories become instant SEO juice.

2. Improve DE&I Recruiting

👉 Reason: Use EGC to demonstrate that leaders value DE&I and are taking action! Collect success stories and testimonials to show the positive impact and outcomes from DE&I efforts. It’s important to demonstrate the long-lasting benefits in order to embed expected behaviors into your business at all levels.

💡 Tip: Employee survey’s are awesome but survey results aren’t going to get candidates engaged like stories. Unlike surveys, stories show your commitment in action and show behind-the-scenes real examples from real people to get a candidate who might be on the fence excited to be a part of your organization much faster.

3. Enhance Employer Branding

👉 Reason: EGC is the easiest way to showcase your brand - as your brand is made by your employees who live by your company values and are part of the culture day in and day out. Demonstrate and activate your Employee Value Proposition with trusted content to increase candidate engagement.

💡 Tip: Create a story campaign with this question: “Share an amazing experience you’ve had working at X company.” Or you could really have fun with it and ask something like: “If our company was a kitchen utensil, what would it be and why?”

4. Attract Quality Talent

👉 Reason: Employee content helps recruiters attract quality talent because it illustrates whether a company’s values match a candidates. As a result, content gets them to say yes faster! “We value teamwork like you see in this story. Can you relate?”

💡 Tip: If you’re a recruiter, you’ve come across the situation where a candidate expresses their desire to work at an organization that values X [fill in the blank]. Maybe it’s collaboration, flexibility, or creativity. You can tell them that your company has a collaborative environment but it’s better to show it.. with an employee story! You should be able to go back to a large collection of organized, categorized employee stories, and pull one within 2 seconds that reflect a value. Pro tip: All of your recruiters should have easy access to these stories to get the most benefit!

5. Personalize the Candidate Experience

👉 Reason: Collect EGC to introduce a candidate to the team they’d join and to reinforce things that matter most to them personally.

💡 Tip: Create a Spotlight Page for a candidate with a collection of employee stories you think would resonate with them most after asking what they value during the interview.

6. Strengthen Your Talent Network

👉 Reason: Nurture your talent network by sending new, fresh, and relatable employee content to peak candidates’ interest.

💡 Tip: Hopefully you have a talent network where you encourage candidates to receive emails from your company about new job opportunities. And let’s say you’re struggling to find content to put in that email. Share select employee stories from current employees with your talent pool. You never know when a certain story will strike a chord with someone and inspire them to apply for a position.

7. Increase Employee Advocacy

👉 Reason: Every company dreams of making employees their biggest cheerleaders. Giving employees the opportunity to share content they are proud to share (and not just job announcement post) will increase the likelihood of them becoming advocates.

💡 Tip: Create a story prompt and collect employee stories answering this question: “Share a team memory you’re proud of from 2022."

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We hope this blog post has proven why collecting EGC is key and how doing so creates endless possibilities for attracting and retaining talent and most importantly: growing your business. Collecting EGC in 2022 is essential to stand out as a company and to give candidates the personalized hiring journey they’re looking for. Although implementing all of these tips may seem difficult, GoodSeeker makes it super easy. We’ve built a platform to seamlessly collect, manage, and share employee stories to improve culture internally and externally, enhance your employer brand, and so much more.

To jump-start your EGC collecting today, get our free toolkit resource: https://toolkit.goodseeker.com/
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MEET GOODSEEKER:

Our talent and candidate engagement platform connects talent to culture, gives remote teams visibility, and helps employers show candidates what it’s like to work on their team. The original  Employee Story Generator makes it extremely fast and easy to collect, manage, and share employee stories for recruitment marketing, culture building, engaging remote employees.

Easily bring employee ambassador and referral campaigns to life with stories and ensure that the content your capture also supports priorities like DE&I, activating your EVP, and improving the candidate experience. Every story is an extension of your career site and SEO juice for recruiting.

Our free employee story toolkit is a great resource for planning your strategy in 2022.

We also invite you to get started with FREE account on GoodSeeker.