Home > Job News > Internship > Importance Of Company Reputation For Attracting Quality Applicants < Job News and Info

New research by Kelly Services has highlighted the importance any business should place on company reputation when seeking to recruit high quality applicants for job vacancies.

The survey found that 83% of jobseekers considered company reputation as important when deciding which firms to join. The 83% was further broken down into those who gauged company reputation as ‘Very Important’ (37%) and ‘Somewhat Important’ (46%). Only 1% thought that the company reputation was ‘Totally Unimportant.’

When asked to identify what constituted good reputation, the jobseekers put quality of products and services at the top of their agenda with 41%. In second place, 30% of the respondents thought that the quality of management or leadership was the most important factor. Other facets that were considered by those surveyed were the quality of employees, financial performance, longevity, global presence and social responsibility.

Interestingly, only 3% of jobseekers considered financial performance as the most important factor. This should mean that organisations need not get too hung up on the balance sheet when trying to advertise jobs to quality candidates. Another factor that many consider to be important when seeking to recruit is offering flexibility incentives like working from home. The survey suggests, however, that this may be a misdirected strategy as 45% of jobseekers marked this down as unimportant.

On the ‘exit door’ side of the survey, jobseekers listed ‘lack of opportunities for advancement’ (30%) and ‘poor management’ (26%) as the main reasons they would consider handing in their notice.

A great way for your organisation to build on your existing company reputation is to take advantage of our free E4S company profiles. These are a highly effective way to promote the important factors of your company reputation amongst jobseekers by letting them know about the quality of products and management in your company. Find out more about how our company profiles could help your business by registering or signing in on the Employer Home Page.

Employment4students offers one of the most cost-effective means of advertising vacancies to students and 16-25 year old demographic. With advertising starting from £20, you can reach the 300,000 new candidates that visit the website every month (February 2010). For further information please see our job advertising section.