How to leverage Glassdoor reviews to improve your employer brand

In Glassdoor's Worklife Trends 2026 report, mentions of "misalignment" in employee reviews jumped 149%, and references to "distrust" rose 26%.¹ That gap between what companies say and what employees experience is showing up in your reviews, and candidates are reading them. Seventy-five percent of job seekers evaluate a company's employer brand before applying. The same feedback that exposes problems gives you a roadmap to fix them.

Key takeaways

What is employer branding (and why reviews are your best signal)?

Employer branding is how your organization is perceived as a place to work: the sum of your employee value proposition (EVP), workplace culture, and stories people tell about you online. Most companies define their EVP in a boardroom but rarely check whether it matches reality.

Unlike internal surveys, which surface what employees are comfortable telling their manager's manager, Glassdoor reviews capture unfiltered sentiment. The Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index hit a record low in December 2025, with just 46.5% of employees holding a positive outlook on their company's business prospects, according to Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor's chief economist.² When confidence drops, your reviews become the public-facing expression of that shift. Candidates aren't just checking your rating. They're reading how you handle layoffs, whether managers follow through, and whether your "flexible work" policy is real or performative.

How to validate your employee experience and respond with accountability

Internal engagement surveys tell you part of the story. Glassdoor reviews tell you the rest. Smart employer branding teams use both, treating reviews as an external check on what employees are willing to say internally.

Southwest Airlines has built this into its process. "If someone writes a Glassdoor review, they're doing that of their own volition. So that's a great way for us to validate and direct some of our employee experience and employer brand content," said Kelby Tansey, manager of recruitment marketing at Southwest Airlines. Beyond validation, Tansey's team uses Glassdoor's category-level scores on benefits, work-life balance, and other dimensions to guide where they focus improvement efforts.

Reading reviews is only step one. Responding is where you demonstrate you're actually listening. A thoughtful response to a critical review tells current employees their voice matters and shows candidates your company takes accountability seriously.

"If you're only asking for feedback but not showing accountability on progress, you'll get a lower response rate. As a candidate is scrolling, if you have that heartfelt response, that's what they care about," said Kelby Tansey, manager of recruitment marketing at Southwest Airlines.

Three principles for review responses that build trust:

For more guidance, see best practices for managing Glassdoor reviews.

How to turn review insights into a stronger recruitment strategy

Review data gives you a playbook for talking to future employees. When you know what employees consistently praise and where they see gaps, you can build recruitment messaging grounded in honesty rather than aspiration.

Start with your career page. If reviews consistently highlight strong mentorship, make that theme prominent. If candidates will find reviews mentioning long hours, don't bury that reality behind stock photos and vague promises. Review themes can also help you write job descriptions that reflect your actual culture. And pay attention to interview reviews on Glassdoor: if multiple candidates mention slow communication or unclear timelines, those are fixable problems that directly affect your offer acceptance rate.

To measure whether any of this is working, you need a baseline. "If you're not starting with the voice of your employees, you're not starting on the right foot, no matter where you are in your employer brand journey," said Kieran Layton, Field People Officer at McDonald's. Review Intelligence™ lets you aggregate review sentiment, surface trends by theme or location, and track progress against your EVP goals.

Finally, consider employee advocacy. Posts shared by employees generate 561% more reach than content shared through brand channels. Build a culture where employees want to share their experience, and the recruitment marketing follows. With SHRM putting the average cost-per-hire at $5,475, an honest, review-informed strategy helps you attract genuinely aligned candidates and reduce costly early turnover.

Methodology

¹ Glassdoor Worklife Trends 2026: Analysis of employee review language trends on the Glassdoor platform, measuring year-over-year changes in the frequency of key workplace sentiment terms. Full report: Glassdoor Worklife Trends 2026.

² Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, December 2025: A monthly survey measuring employees' outlook on their company's six-month business prospects. The December 2025 reading of 46.5% positive outlook represented a record low. Full report: Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Round trip in 2025.