Why your employer’s reputation should matter to you

Reputation and brand are critical imperatives for businesses. They affect everything from the number of followers on social media to attract and retain talent to overall business revenue. Companies that make concerted efforts with their brands and reputations reap many benefits, including more revenue opportunities, lowered marketing costs, decreased employee attrition, and public trust. At a basic human level, everyone wants to make the best choice, and they base their selection on the person or company whose reputation seems to be superior. Being associated with such a company through employment helps your brand, too.

Unfortunately, for every employer with a premium brand, there are exponentially more that have reputations for being terrible places to work, having questionable ethics and practices, or having shoddy products. These employer brands can and will reflect poorly upon the companies’ employees. Think of what it must have been like to search for a new job if you had been in finance at Enron in 2001, mortgage brokerage at Bear Stearns in 2008, or diesel engineer with Volkswagen in 2015. It was challenging to be attached to these problematic brands, and it hurt candidates’ credibility. The lesson here is that job seekers need to evaluate hiring companies' reputations just as much as hiring companies should do the same on potential employees. Here are a few tips to help you with your research:

Gather intel from former employees. Reach out to the prospective employer’s former employees on LinkedIn and ask for their perspective. You’re going to want to get feedback from multiple people, and you will need to be attuned to common themes. Make a note of these.

Check job postings over the previous 12-18 months. Do the same roles appear over and over again? If so, that is a clear sign of a high rate of turnover. That is a red flag.

Search new stories during the previous 12-18 months. What has the media coverage of the employer been? Again, look for common threads and take note.

Distinguish between product reputation and employer reputation. A company can have significant, innovative, and disruptive products yet have terrible workplace reputations. You may love the company’s products; it doesn’t mean it’s an excellent place to work.

The bottom line

A poor company reputation has long-term costs that are borne both by the employer and employees. Remember that interviewing is a two-way street. If you are interviewing with a company with a questionable or poor reputation, don’t be afraid to bring up the elephant in the room. Ask for an explanation and probe what the plan is to turn it around. If you do decide to proceed, make sure you have all the relevant information upfront.