Employer brand

7 Stats That Prove Your Employees Are Your Secret Recruiting Weapon

When it comes to hiring, recruiters are most companies' champions. From sourcing to writing job descriptions and reaching out to candidates, they shoulder most of the responsibility in terms of getting talent interested in working for a company. 

However, there's another secret recruiting weapon that most companies don't think about using to help them recruit: their employees.

Turns out, employees are one of your best resources for attracting talent to your company. And, all they have to do is take a moment to share smart, quality content on social media. This makes your employees more visible and in that way your employer brand is exposed to more people who are likely to become interested in your company and apply for a job there.

Doubting how effective this is? Take a look at the following list of statistics that highlight the major recruiting benefits of “employee activation,” i.e. your employees sharing your content.

1. On average, a company’s employees have 10x more connections than the company has followers.

One of the biggest challenges to building an employer brand is actually reaching people with your employer branding content. Obviously, you are probably sharing that content on your LinkedIn Company Page and other social channels.

But want to hit 10x the market? Get your employees to share it as well. LinkedIn data shows their collective networks are 10x larger than your company’s, and therefore getting your employees to share will reach far more people.

2. People are 3x more likely to trust company information from employees than from the CEO.

If the CEO of a company told you his company was great to work for, you probably would be skeptical. But if a friend of yours told you that their company was great to work for, you probably would believe them.

This stat reflects that. Not only do your employees have larger networks than your company does, when they do share content, it is seen as much more authentic and believable.

3. On average, employee re-shares of company content have a click-through rate of 2.1x that of the original company status update.

Let’s do some math, regarding these last three data points.

Your employees have 10x larger network than your company. When they share a post, it is seen as 3x more authentic. Additionally, when they share a post, it has basically double the click-through rate.

You know what that equates to? If you could get all your employees to share smart, engaging content and, factoring in the extra click-through rate, that piece of content would be seen by 20x more people. Additionally, it would be seen as 3x more believable, meaning that, overall, the share would be 60x more valuable than if you just shared it on your company page.

That’s pretty staggering. Obviously, you are never going to get all your employees to share a post, but the data is certainly instructive.

4. While only 2% of employees share a company’s social content, they’re responsible for 20% of overall social engagement.

Here’s a stat that backs up the last point. Right now, one in fifty employees share their company’s content on LinkedIn, and yet that represents one-fifth of companies’ total social engagement.

The message: There’s a huge opportunity here for growth.

5. Every 6 pieces of content shared by a LinkedIn member influences 6 new job views.

When your employees share smart quality content with their networks, there is a direct benefit to your employer brand, even when the content is not directly related to your company. There are a lot of benefits to people seeing not only your employer branding content, but also seeing employees at your company as thought leaders in their space.

This stat bears it out, as for every 6 pieces of content your employees share on LinkedIn, 6 more people will view one of your job postings on the site.

6. 86% of employees who participate in a formal social media advocacy program said it has had a positive impact on their career.

There are a lot of companies out there, like Dell for instance, that understand this concept of “employee activation” and build formal programs around it. And it significantly helps them recruit.

But that’s not all it does. As this statistic shows, it also boosts morale; as 86% of employees in a formal employee activation program said it has had a positive impact on their own career.

7. Socially engaged companies are 58% more likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain them.

Going along these lines, companies with strong employee activation programs – i.e. “socially engaged companies” – both land top talent and keep them around longer. Also, another stat your C-suite might enjoy: These socially engaged companies also garner 58% more sales leads from LinkedIn.

Tying it all together

It’s crazy to designate arguably the most important job at your company – hiring great people – to just the recruiting team. If you do that, you are severely limiting your ability to recruit.

Instead, you should empower your employees to share great content that is engaging to them (and thus their networks). By doing so you position your employees as thought leaders on social media, with their engagement better driving their networks' interest in your company.

To learn how to build your own employee activation program, here’s a free ebook on exactly what to do, or you can check out LinkedIn Elevate, an employee activation tool. 

*Image from James Bond

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