Stumbled on this site the other day and I think it's pretty cool. CareerBliss is a site where people can post their views (annonymously) on the company they work for. They don't even have to work at the company anymore, they can post on previous employers.
Now, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is how can you tell if a post is even by someone that actually worked at the company? I mean, what is to stop competitors from posting things about their competition. I don't have the answer to that.
I think however that these types of sites ultimately follow some law of averages or something. Sure, some comments might be intentionally malicious. Just like some might be intentionally overly positive (I can see companies posting glowing reviews even if they aren't true). But on the whole, when all the comments get averaged out, you hope to get a rough proximity of the truth.
If the site fails in this regard, then it's quickly abandoned by people as a trust worthy service.
I find ratemds.com (a site that rates doctors - and just like CareerBliss it is annonymous) very useful and accurate. Overall the ratings seem to be in-line with the experience you're likely to have.
Sites like these put a whole new emphasis on how internal operations impact your external brand. It use to be that if you had top notch marketing and PR that you could have quite a big gap between what the external world thought of you and what your employees thought of you.
While Twitter and blogs threatened that outside-inside paradigm, they were limited by the fact that ultimately your tweets or blog comments could be traced back to you. Not to mention you can only do so much damage with a limited following (investors, new employees, current employees, etc., are unlikely to even find the blog/twitter reference).
But with sites like CareerBliss, as far as I can tell, there's no way to trace back who actually made a comment. As such, it's purely an open forum for people to 'leak' what they think. Which means, your employees have the ability to severly damage your brand.
Who today doesn't go and check imdb before watching a movie? I know I don't watch anything before checking what rating people have given it.
I can see a site like CareerBliss really taking off and that means companies need to start thinking about how their internal operations play in to their external brand strategies. Spending millions developing an external brand while spending nothing on creating a workplace that employees enjoy could create a scenario where the millions you spent external go down the drain as employees tell the world who your company really is!
As I've mentioned in previous posts, it's time for PR and HR to work more closely together, because synchronicity between your external perception and internal perception must match up or you are at risk of destroying your brand.
This is also why I think Google has such a strong brand. Their internal culture seems to support the traits associated with its external brand, resulting in congruence wherein publics trust the brand impression being made.
(Oh and just one last thought. This looks like the perfect type of company for LinkedIn to acquire. You drop CareerBliss in to the LinkedIn service and it could easily redefine corporate reputations over night.).
Now, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is how can you tell if a post is even by someone that actually worked at the company? I mean, what is to stop competitors from posting things about their competition. I don't have the answer to that.
I think however that these types of sites ultimately follow some law of averages or something. Sure, some comments might be intentionally malicious. Just like some might be intentionally overly positive (I can see companies posting glowing reviews even if they aren't true). But on the whole, when all the comments get averaged out, you hope to get a rough proximity of the truth.
If the site fails in this regard, then it's quickly abandoned by people as a trust worthy service.
I find ratemds.com (a site that rates doctors - and just like CareerBliss it is annonymous) very useful and accurate. Overall the ratings seem to be in-line with the experience you're likely to have.
Sites like these put a whole new emphasis on how internal operations impact your external brand. It use to be that if you had top notch marketing and PR that you could have quite a big gap between what the external world thought of you and what your employees thought of you.
While Twitter and blogs threatened that outside-inside paradigm, they were limited by the fact that ultimately your tweets or blog comments could be traced back to you. Not to mention you can only do so much damage with a limited following (investors, new employees, current employees, etc., are unlikely to even find the blog/twitter reference).
But with sites like CareerBliss, as far as I can tell, there's no way to trace back who actually made a comment. As such, it's purely an open forum for people to 'leak' what they think. Which means, your employees have the ability to severly damage your brand.
Who today doesn't go and check imdb before watching a movie? I know I don't watch anything before checking what rating people have given it.
I can see a site like CareerBliss really taking off and that means companies need to start thinking about how their internal operations play in to their external brand strategies. Spending millions developing an external brand while spending nothing on creating a workplace that employees enjoy could create a scenario where the millions you spent external go down the drain as employees tell the world who your company really is!
As I've mentioned in previous posts, it's time for PR and HR to work more closely together, because synchronicity between your external perception and internal perception must match up or you are at risk of destroying your brand.
This is also why I think Google has such a strong brand. Their internal culture seems to support the traits associated with its external brand, resulting in congruence wherein publics trust the brand impression being made.
(Oh and just one last thought. This looks like the perfect type of company for LinkedIn to acquire. You drop CareerBliss in to the LinkedIn service and it could easily redefine corporate reputations over night.).
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