Indeed Reviews: Why They Matter and How Employers Can Protect Their Brand

Introduction

Almost every big, medium, and small-sized company uses job posting sites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Naukri.com, etc., to hire candidates. Over the past decade the global online recruitment market has witnessed the growth of 8.4% CAGR. Its annual revenue, which was 32.0 billion in 2022, is projected to be  USD 2,656.9 million by 2033. This indicates the dependability people have over this website for a reliable employer as well as employee.

Among these big hiring platforms the most visited one is indeed. Although there are no correct statistics of its users globally, in the USA Indeed is used by nearly 96% of job seekers. This gives us a rough idea about the number of people who have access to your company profile and why it is important to remove Indeed reviews that exhibit a negative image of your company.

What is Indeed?

Indeed is worlds one of the most used websites. This is the platform where the employer and employees connect and contact each other directly. The majority of job seekers and employers prefer indeed over other platforms. According to the data, Indeed has over 330m unique visitors monthly.

What Makes Indeed Better Than Other Job Posting Sites for Job Seekers?

Being user friendly is the reason why job seekers and recruiters mostly prefer indeed over other websites. It has certain features that make it better than.

Features 

• Pool of job posting – Indeed a provides the young people looking for jobs a pool of opportunity in their preferred fields. Unlike linkedin indeed doesn’t require one to connect to the recruiter through network
• Advanced job searching – Searching for a job on Indeed is very easy in comparison to other job portals. To search for a job all you have to do is go to the search bar type the job you are looking for it will give you a list that consists of the job that you are looking for from many companies.
• Effective hiring tool – hiring tools helps the applicant to keep track of their application. for example if you have submitted a job application you indeed keeps you updated about your application status
• User-friendly navigation – Indeed makes it easy to look for a job for those who are not well connected on linked in, Its target users are mostly freshers, this is a reason why they keep the job application process easy to understand.

These are the features that indeed makes it easy for the freshers to look for jobs online, apply in multiple companies.

What Makes Indeed Better Than Other Job Posting Sites For Employers?

Not only employees, Indeed also is very easy to use for employers. According to 10xhire over 3 million employers monthly visit on Indeed. It has a list of features that makes the employers prefer indeed over other job posting website.

Features

• Broad reach – indeed offers a pool of job seekers which gives the employer a lot choices among candidates.
• Job posting – Job posting is indeed a very easy process. the job posting review process only takes few hours.
• Cost effective – Indeed is more cost effective and pocket friendly in comparison to other websites.
• User friendly – Indeed is more user friendly, all you have to add is job title, job description, location compensation.

What are Indeed Reviews

Indeed review is a section which is designed specifically for the employees to leave a review about their previous company. These reviews contain information about a company that helps the reader to have a better idea about the overall working experience of your company.

Indeed guidelines to write reviews

While writing a reviews the reviewer has to maintain certain guidelines such as

• Do not write about anything that is not relevant to the company
• Maintain a genuine review
• Use your own experience
• Do not public any vital information about the company

What are Negative Indeed Reviews

Negative Indeed reviews are mostly done by employees or ex-employees expressing their dissatisfaction about the company.

A firm must know how to handle negative reviews as this can affect the number of applicants. Negative reviews can be used as a source of information about a business body. It is enough to understand how deeply it can affect the business reputation.

Categories of Negative Indeed Reviews

The indeed review section gives insights about the organization. Your firm’s indeed profile can have both negative and positive reviews.

It is very important to critically analyze the originality of the reviews as there have been some reviews without any authenticity to it. In this blog we will discuss the categories of negative reviews.

• Workplace issue related indeed reviews

These reviews are majorly done by the ex employees. These reviews put out the internal shortcomings of an organization. If any employee had any issues with your company culture then the chances of him/her leaving a review regarding the office work environment is very obvious.

here is an example of how workplace environment results in negative review.

Workplace environment is a very important part for your company’s profile, any review that projects the toxic work environment can easily grab the attention of the applicant. To avoid these incidents you should always avoid some common mistakes made in corporate as it gives advantage to your competitive companies.

• Pay related indeed reviews

Pay related reviews generally describe the organizations incompatibility to understand the employees needs. Imagine working a 12 hour shift for a company and the company delays your payment by weeks. How would you feel? It is obvious that this issue will make the employee put less effort in his job which will eventually lead him to leave a bad review.

Now if you are an employee who is about to join a company and you go through their negative reviews section and see payment related issues, would you join the company? obviously not.

These type of reviews are enough for someone to lose faith in your company and divert to the other better options.

• Biased indeed reviews

Certain reviews on Indeed are biased. It means it’s either going to point out the only negative characteristics of a company or the good parts. This is generally done by the dissatisfied employees who were dismissed from their job because of their lack of professionalism or any other reason.

It can also be done by the competitors who are trying to damage your business’s online reputation. By doing so the competitors will lead the crowd to their company websites.

The damage by biased reviews depends on the part that’s been covered in that review, suppose if that review is about the company culture it will portray as the office has a very toxic culture.

• Job security related indeed reviews

Job security related reviews are very crucial for the firm image. There have been incidents where the employers remove a working official from his/her post. This is reasonable enough for that individual to leave a bad review.

Providing job security in recent times is very important for any firm. Any review that indicates that the firm does not provide any kind job security can cost the firm potential employees. This can also put the faith of other employees in their working place in question. This can make the existing employees doubt their own job security and question their firm.

• Irrelevant indeed reviews

Irrelevant indeed reviews are capable of doing the exact amount of damage like other negative reviews. This is another tactical tool that other competing firms use for defamation.

If your organization’s Indeed profile is filled with negative reviews no matter how irrelevant they are, they are effective enough to drive the applicants away. As per reports by glassdoor 50% of the candidates have stated that they would pass on a firm with a bad online reputation, even if the firm offers to increase their pay.

• Offensive indeed reviews

Offensive Indeed reviews are when your firm is being falsely accused of some illegal activity without any evidence. This kind of review violates indeed’s guidelines.

Hardly anyone does the background checking. People mostly believe what they see online and move forward. It can cost the organization customer trust, lower the sales rate and internet ranking of the company.

Effects of Negative Reviews 

The chances of a firm attracting more clients, gaining people’s trust, retaining and recruiting depends on its popularity.

Reviews about anything are what makes a sense of understanding in people whether the product is good or not. One bad review is enough to initiate doubts about it.

To understand it better, suppose a new movie has been released, what is the first thing you will do before you go into the theatre to see it? Read or see the public reviews whether the movie is worth watching or not. The same thing happens when people read reviews about your company.

If the reviews project an unapproachable profile of your company then it makes this obvious that the people would not wanna touch it with a 10foot poll.

Why they Need to be Removed

You can turn a blind eye to negative reviews about your company on indeed thinking as none of it is true then it won’t affect the brand value. But managing online reputation does not work like that.

You see every comment that has the potential to defame your firm should be taken seriously. Removal of that comment is necessary to save the brand image of your firm. Remember good brand image equals growth in business. The reasons why removing them will benefit your company are  listed below:

• It improves organizations google ranking.
• By removing indeed reviews such as the fake reviews, negative feedbacks, reviews that do not follow community guidelines will eventually increase the number of positive reviews.
• The positive reviews on indeed will make the job postings more successful by increasing the number of applicants.
• Removing any review that doesn’t follow the indeed policies will help to clean the public image of the organization.
• The online reputation management process helps in overall growth of the company. It not only boosts the employee morale but it also helps the business by bringing in more investors.

Do Fake Negative  Reviews Really Matter?

Maintaining a good public image is very tough in the internet era when everyone is aware of ongoing incidents. Fake negative reviews are something that have no evidence to back them up but still they are potentially strong enough to wreck the brand value that organizations take years to build.

Note: Fake negative reviews are not to be taken lightly, people tend to believe negative rumour more than positive news. It will be better if you  will be to look for the companies who provide content removal services.

How does it Impact the People Inside the Firm?

When a person is associated with a very renowned firm, he takes pride in telling people about the business body he is working for. The exact opposite happens for a person who is working for an organization that has a very bad online reputation.

Now you may think, how is a firm’s image so important for its employees? In simple words the more positive an image a firm has, the more positive attitude the employee carries for its firm. Negative criticism regarding the company leaves a bad impression on the employees attitude.

So when you are working for a company the reputation of the company can matter a lot. Below are some facts that describe the how the brand reputation of the organization impacts the people associated with it.

• It affects the work environment
• It affects the work life balance of the employees
• the employees will have doubts about their own company.
• If most reviews are negative it will affect the company growth in the long run.
• Company’s bad reputation can affect the employee satisfaction
• The chances of employees switching firms may rise
• The decrease in number of satisfied employees

How Can Negative Reviews Lead To An Online Reputation Crisis?

As a large amount of people are on the internet, maintaining an online reputation is quite challenging. People/brands with the most positive image and reputation had to deal with public backlash and criticism. There are a number of ways indeed negative reviews can lead to online reputation crisis

• A negative review can be easily circulated on social media
• negative reviews can lead to spoiling the online reputation
• Online reputation crisis leads to drop in sales number

You should always handle this situation professionally. As these situations are very vital for the future of the company. Any wrong decision can cost the company’s future.

Effective Ways to Differentiate and Remove Indeed Reviews

To mark the reviews that you want to be reported on you need to understand the difference between the reviews that you can ask indeed to remove and the reviews that you cannot.

Indeed guidelines mention some of the points that reviews should follow to not get deleted. below we will see some examples of reviews that can be removed and those reviews that cannot.

Reviews that cannot be Reported

• Reviews that come form genuine source, working experience can not be deleted even if they are negative.
• Reviews that are not biased can not be reported.
• reviews that are not misleading but point genuine pros and cons about working in an certain office then that review is also not eligible to be flagged.

Reviews that can be Reported

• Reviews that breach NDA

Many organizations sign a NDA(Non Disclosure agreement) with its employees which prevents them from talking about any operations of the firm. If any review indicates that it has breached the NDA then the firm is legally able to report it.

• Illegitimate review

Reviews can be reported to be removed if they spread inaccurate information about the company’s operations or write reviews that mislead the public.

• Spam reviews

If you suspect any review is made by your competitor then you can flag it as indeeds guideline does not allow any office to make a negative review about any business that works for the same market as them. By following effective spam removal strategies you can implement for better reviews.

• Mistaken reviews

There have been incidents where some individual has written a review mistaking another company for your company. This type of reviews are also eligible to get reported.

How to Flag a Review? and How it Works.

To get a review on indeed permanently removed you have to read the review carefully and check if the reviewer has violated any guidelines and flag them.

• Supportive Evidence

provide evidence to support your claim that the review violates indeed’s guideline. Providing supportive evidence gives your claim a strong support and a reason why the review needs to be removed.

If the removal request is valid and the provided evidence proves it violates indeed policies, indeed will check the reported review.

The Process to Differentiate Between the Reviews

• Go through the reviews thoroughly.
• Pay attention if the reviews have failed to maintain indeed guidelines.
• Maintaining professionalism is must.
• back up your reports with indeed content guideline.

The Process to Report a Reviews

1. In the process of reporting a review the first step is to find the review that you want to remove.
2. next what you do is click on the report button.
3. Add any additional evidence to back up your claim to remove the selected review.
4. Submit your request.

Note – Reporting a review does not guarantee removal.

Alternate Ways to Remove Indeed Reviews

There are alternate ways to get an indeed review removed. Indeed customer care can take some extra time for the removal request to process, it is also a possibility that the reported review does not get removed at all. So what to do if this happens?

In this scenario the best possible options are

• If you have the contact details about the person who has made that review yo;u cna contact them directly. Direct communication will give you a chance to understand why that person wrote that review.
• If they point out any valid reason it is very important to take that statement into consideration this can be used as a tool to work on that part of the organization.
• You can offer solution or help if anyhow your organization has caused any harm to that person’s career.
• Ask direct questions to that person for better understanding.
• Responding professionally during the conversation is very important.
• If your company successfully comes to an agreement with the person you can politely ask the to remove their review.

Is it possible to take legal Action against any Indeed reviews?

Taking legal action against any indeed review is possible. In order to take any legal action against an indeed review is only effective if

• Defamation case – If there is an indeed review that is baseless and is spreading false rumors against the firm then the organization can take legal action to file a defamation case.
• Interim relief – It is a court order that will provide immunity to the organization against any certain action and to maintain the status quo.
• Legal notice – The organization can send a legal notice to indeed highlighting the issue before taking this matter to court or filling a case.

The Repercussion of taking Legal Help

An organization can take legal action on a review by suing the reviewer for defamation. But sometimes the legal ways have chances of taking comparatively more time for a review to completely be taken off form the website.

• Time Consuming – Taking legal steps to remove a review can be time consuming. As it is a very lengthy process.
• Public attention – For a big company filling a case on a civilian can draw unwanted negative public attention towards it. We can take The McLibel Case(1997) for example where McDonald’s sued Helen Steel and David Morris for defamation. This case lasted for 10 years and costed McDonalds 60,000 dollars.
• Brand image damage – There is no surety that the verdict will be in your favour but there are chances that the accused person can sue the business owner for harassment. This is bad enough to damage the image of the company.

Note: Before taking any legal action gathering evidence is very crucial. Evidence that supports the case and strong enough to prove that the review is baseless. Indeed does not provide guaranteed removals . Indeed content policy does not let companies delete the online reviews.

Involving third party

Big companies hire third parties to work on review removal. Involving third parties not only  saves time and your onm;line reputation.

Why You Should Hire an Online Reputation Management Agency to Handle Negative Reviews

The online reputation management agencies are hired by business bodies. They work towards building a strong brand image in the market. In this scenario they can help by assisting the firm on how to deal with negative reviews. 

How online reputation management agency help to gain a positive brand image

• With the help of online reputation management agency the organization gains more confident investors once the negative reviews are removed permanently
• Chances of new potential candidates joining the organization will grow only if the ORM keeps the google ranking in check
• ORM maintains direct communication with employees and clients. This help the organization to understand the issues better
• ORM agencies can highlight the positive reviews to clean brand image helps in boosting the employee satisfaction as well as brand value
• Removing spam reviews are also a part of ORM duties. 

How online reputation management help to generate more positive reviews?

Online reputation management agencies have some review management strategies they follow to achieve  fruitful results

• Online reputation management agencies can approach its satisfied employees and customers to leave positive reviews about them.
• They can help to build a good online image with the use of social media pages, and their testimonial page.

The online management team focuses more on building a positive online image by approaching the issue professionally. Focusing on how to make the internal environment healthy can bring fruitful results.

What an Online Reputation Company Should not do

• Paying a group of people to post positive reviews on indeed. It is not only unethical but also mislead the people about companies image.
• Threatening someone and forcing them to delete their interview is not legally correct because there is a chance that this can get the organization in legal trouble.
• The online reputation team is not allowed to harass someone over the internet.

FAQ

Conclusion

To conclude, we need to understand how important online reviews are. They can help a company to build its future as well as destroy it. Indeed reviews uplifts the importance of public opinion about your firm so that others can get to know more about your business. The category of the review sends a message to the public about what to expect from your organization. This is the reason why organizations should take the necessary steps to delete the online reviews about them.

This blog discusses all the do’s and don’ts that business body’s should follow to avoid any kind of negative promotion. It also provides detailed step by step guides that can help you to get any negative review taken down from the internet. For better results you can also seek help from an expert agency to help you manage your online ratings by removing negative reviews.