As a consumer, you probably are familiar with the concept of reviews whether it is for a product or service like an Amazon product review or a review of a product or company on a Facebook Business Page or Yelp.com. The growth in these review sites is understandable. As access to information, resources, and news grows thanks in part to mobile phones and tablet, technology people can get information and share literally anywhere.

The same is true for employment. As the job market has tightened combined with the increased access to employer information and social media, employer review sites provide job candidates and potential employees a look into the organization and perspectives in the past they wouldn’t have access to.

What Are Employee Review Sites?

Employee review sites are sites that encourage candidates, current, and former employees to write company reviews and provide useful details about a company. Reviews are crowdsourced and provide information on the company culture, the managers, the hiring process, salaries, and more. Company reviews and ratings are available for just about every major company and many smaller employers.

These employee and employer review sites do more than provide candidates information about the organization they provide employers a way to drive passive yet targeted job seeker traffic to their organization. If a company opts to pay for specific plans on the sites, they can drive candidates to their job postings, career fairs, and company-specific information on a website that targets a much larger and/or often very specific pool of candidates that the company is interested in engaging, recruiting, and reaching.

The number of employee review sites has grown significantly over the years and different organizations that have traditionally played in areas mainly job boards have added employer review features and functionality to their existing websites and product offerings. One of the first and most well-known employer review sites is Glassdoor.com. Glassdoor, like other sites provides job candidates a way to learn more about the organization provided through anonymous reviews as well as paid company content and resources. For a fee, employers can control job posting features, articles, photos, and spotlight different reviews of their choosing. Sites like Glassdoor have taken a hard stance on not removing negative reviews but encouraging companies and employers to take these negative reviews as an opportunity to learn, respond, and create meaningful change at their companies.

How Company Review Sites Generate Revenue

It’s important to note that sites like Glassdoor generate revenue a number of different ways. First, they charge employers a fee whether monthly or annually to be featured employers and have access to certain benefits and features when it comes to company pages. Most employer review sites offer free but limited access to the company profile pages. Employer review sites also generate revenue in a way that is similar to traditional job boards in that they are paid to drive candidates to other job boards and job listings.

Sometimes these postings are from what could be viewed as competitor websites or job sites. The sites are paid per click or per applicant by the site they are referring or driving the traffic to. This can be accomplished by web traffic, email, or the job alerts that job candidates sign up to receive.

How Many Employer Review Sites Are There?

As the online job search market has changed in part due to the ability for employers to reach, attract, and engage candidates online, the market has evolved. Employer Review Sites are the Classified Ads 3.0 providing job seekers with aggregated, verified, and accessible information that provides a nearly holistic look at an organization or position that relies on the activity of the job seekers themselves.

Because of the success of sites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn, there are a number of different forms and versions of employer review sites that provide candidates information about not just the company culture, compensation, hiring process, and the growth of the organization. At present, there are at least 16 employee review sites that job seekers should consider when evaluating employers. These same sites are ones that employers should monitor, manage, and be aware of as they are growing in importance and popularity among job seekers in this bull and zero unemployment marketplace.

Employer Review Site Resources

• How to Respond to a Negative Employee Review 
• Best Job Board Aggregators
• The 9th Circuit Court Rules Glassdoor Reviews Not Anonymous
• Which is the BestEmployer Review Site?
• List of All the Employer Review Sites