You may already know that customers generally trust each other more than they trust your marketing. That’s why it’s wise to put customer testimonials in key spots throughout your digital advertising.
The same logic applies to your recruiting efforts. Potential candidates would likely trust what your current employees say about your company over your corporate messaging.
That’s what employee testimonials are for.
Below, we’ll discuss employee testimonials and their benefits — especially in the rapidly evolving world of remote work. Then, we’ll show you five examples of excellent employee testimonials from various brands.
What is an employee testimonial?
An employee testimonial is a statement that an employee gives about what it’s like working at your company.
Much like client testimonials, they attest to the best aspects of your company on the employee side.
Employee testimonials can cover many aspects:
- The employee’s role
- Company culture
- Working environment
- Diversity and inclusion
- A typical day
- Employee’s development personally and professionally while at the company
- Pay and benefits — usually only briefly and as a side note. Numbers aren’t discussed. May see more emphasis if the company is an industry leader in this area.
Employee testimonials can take many forms:
- Text
- Photo — Of the employee, ideally, with their testimonial accompanying it
- Video — Quite effective, as prospects can see the employee’s facial expressions/body language and hear their tone of voice
- Blog content
- Social media takeover — where the employee runs a social media account for a day and shows others their typical workday
- Social media posts
You may need to outsource more complicated testimonial formats, like video. However, the investment can pay off.
You can use employee testimonials in several places — most notably, career pages and individual job postings.
Why do you need employee testimonials?
Firms are competing for top talent. Better talent means better work, which generally creates more profits.
Employee testimonials give you an edge because employees do their research on companies before applying and interviewing. They give insight into what working at your company is like, building trust with potential hires.
Furthermore, they also help recruit the right employees. Those recruited from peer testimonials will fit better into your culture, mission, values, and so on.
In the post-pandemic age, you have a golden opportunity to attract excellent candidates to your open positions. This is all thanks to the “Great Resignation.”
Employees hunkered down during the pandemic to hold onto their jobs in the bad economy — even if that meant dealing with a bad boss or work culture.
Now that the economy is reopening and remote work has made distance less of an issue, many more employment opportunities exist.
In fact, over 40% of the workforce is considering leaving their job in 2021. Nearly 4 million people quit their jobs in April 2021 alone.
You have to work harder than ever to get the best job candidates in the post-pandemic age. But this isn’t a secret. Other companies will be doing everything possible to snag top talent. Offering more money on its own won’t do the trick.
Compelling employee testimonials can help you win over great employees. You’ll set yourself up to build a strong team and foster a positive company culture moving forward.
Use these 5 employee testimonial examples as inspiration
Stuck trying to create your employee testimonials? Check out the examples below for inspiration.
1. Spectrum
Spectrum lays out its testimonials page in a unique way, where each testimonial looks kind of like a social media post, as you can see below.
Each Spectrum employee only answers one question in their testimonial video. This saves the employees time while letting prospective candidates get a wide view of working at Spectrum.
As you can see, each testimonial has the employee’s name, title, and several relevant tags. These let you sort and filter using the options on the left of the page.
You’ll also notice the heart icon with the number next to it in the bottom right of each testimonial. People can “like” the testimonials, creating some social proof and helping to display more relevant ones for the viewer.
When you hover your cursor over a video, it auto plays the video without the audio, which is a nice little touch to encourage you to click.
Let’s look at one of their employee testimonials:
Testimonials autoplay, and users can adjust the sound or make them fullscreen and even read a transcript. Notice the “Apply” button, too — the more chances to let people apply, the more likely they’ll do so.
2. Procter & Gamble
One of the hardest things for a job seeker to figure out before taking a job is what it’s like working at your company — let alone being a brand new employee.
Giving your potential employees a glimpse at a typical day, or a typical “first day,” can alleviate this objection and even make them enthusiastic about interviewing.
It helps you, too, because you draw in employees that share your values and fit in with your culture.
That’s what makes “Day 1” testimonials like Procter & Gamble’s work well.
The structure here is great. The photo of the employee at the top, followed by the quote in bold blue, instantly builds trust with the reader.
Then, the employee elaborates further on their role. They cover their current role and future plans within the company.
After, the employee talks about her positive experience with the company, including the culture itself and how she’s made an impact.
It’s worth noting that P&G has a large library of these “Day 1” stories, covering every career area across all the countries it hires in.
Such a large library helps the company appeal to a more diverse set of prospective employees.
3. Coty
Sometimes, you want to draw more information out of your testimonials. You might want to convey more about working at your company, which can strengthen the initial trust you build.
Coty, a multinational beauty company, does this quite well with its interview-style testimonials.
First, they show a large photo of the employee with a broad quote from them.
Below that, they give all the basic info about the employee. Notice how they call this “Employee Voice” to give it a unique name instead of “testimonials.”
Also, Coty placed a CTA in this section. Adding more CTAs throughout the page is almost always a good idea.
The quote, photos, and colors grab your attention and pull you down the page.
Once you scroll down, you’ll see several questions with the employee’s answers directly below.
This style of testimonial could be even more effective than a plain statement. It could build more credibility because the statement doesn’t look “canned,” and the testimonial questions are transparent. Plus, Coty can flesh out the employee’s testimonial and cover more ground.
Toward the bottom, Coty provides a few more recommendations for employee stories. You can check these out in case the one you’re on doesn’t resonate.
4. Nike
Nike offers plenty of good employee testimonial stuff on its career page — titled Life at Nike — that you could modify for your own.
Right away, there’s a big video testimonial at the top.
It has text on the side for context if you want it, but you can hop right into the video and hear the employee convey his experiences.
Scroll down a little further, and you’ll see some quick testimonials from other employees with their photos.
You can see they have both regular testimonials with text and pictures and video testimonials. There’s something for everyone.
Additionally, Nike provides concise yet powerful quotes from each employee — if any of them resonate, it draws the reader in.
The video is clickable, but the other squares aren’t links. Still, they draw you down the page to some full customer stories — instead of just testimonials.
While not exactly a testimonial, a company could easily mimic this format and add testimonials from employees around the link to the story.
Also worth noting: sprinkled throughout the page are quotes Nike believes in and lives by. This works together with the stories and testimonials to be quite compelling.
5. Nationwide
Many of the above testimonials are fantastic, offering plenty of information in numerous formats.
However, a simple approach can work, too — especially if it’s a video testimonial.
That’s what Nationwide does on its careers page. For example, here’s a testimonial:
This testimonial takes the “a day in the life” approach, helping employees see what working at Nationwide is actually like.
First, it starts with a bit of text introducing the employee, what they do, and where they were before Nationwide. It then directs you to the video for the full details.
Now, maybe this specific testimonial doesn’t connect with a prospective job applicant.
To make navigating to other testimonials as easy as possible, Nationwide places several more on the same page — just scroll down.
Notice how they appeal to several types of people with different angles, such as Military Appreciation Month and internships for college students.
Overall, this is a good careers page that offers several distinct video testimonials in one easy spot.
Conclusion
Customers trust customers, and job hunters trust your current employees. Employee testimonials done right can be a powerful recruiting tool because they show top talent an inside look at your company and prove to them why it’s a great place to work.
Ideally, you should use multiple formats, especially video. However, some of our examples showed that a simpler approach could work as well.
If you’d like expert help in planning and creating employee video testimonials that make candidates eager to join your firm, contact us today.
