The Trust of the Information from Employer Rating Platforms

Introduction

Employer rating platforms provide information about the employer: company culture, benefits or leadership style. Rating platforms for products or hotels for example are very popular and useful for individuals. These platforms provide additional information from the perspective of employees, customers and guests. They present their positive or negative experiences or share ideas about products or services, on gained experience. The value of the information at rating platforms is that many people evaluate a service or product (Li & Bernoff, 2011; Miguéns, Baggio, & Costa, 2008). The power of rating platforms is the recommendation, of products, companies or services and the influence of other people. The person who shares or provides the information on those pages is independent from the company and has a personal perspective. This person can create an opinion leadership in the community and be a motivator to use employer rating platforms (Chen, Fay, & Wang, 2011). Employer rating platforms provide additional insights into companies which are interesting for potential candidates. Individuals believe and trust in rating platforms more than in other information channels (Shu & Chuang, 2011; Bernoff & Schadler, 2010). The research investigates the trust of individuals in employer rating platforms because the current research concentrates on other rating platforms. The knowledge about companies supports the decision to apply or not to apply. The employer rating platform is a software based tool in the internet. The new technological opportunities provide the opportunity to distribute information to many individuals quickly and easily world-wide. Employer rating platforms are a kind of social media and a very useful tool for the human resources management (Kluemper, Mitra, & Wang, 2016; Carr & Hayes, 2015). That makes employer rating platforms an interesting tool for employment seeking individuals to collect information about the employer. The power of the employment rating platform is the effective and efficient exchange of information without any control. The product marketing departments know the power of rating platforms and that a negative evaluation could create fundamental damages for the company. Employer rating platforms are a beneficial channel to exchange information quickly and easily (Nikitkov & Sainty, 2014). Rating platforms have the potential to create communities who discuss via rating platforms the advantages and disadvantages of employer for example.

Social media changes the employment seeking process. The internet creates new opportunities and places to find an employer (Sander, 2013). The labour market in Germany is changing. The demand for employees is increasing and the number of skilled employees is decreasing. The demographic changes lead to a gap between employees and open positions on the job market. Individuals have the opportunity to choose their employer. The companies have to motivate individuals to apply. They need a good employer branding that people take under consideration to apply (Sivertzen et al., 2013). Companies need skilled employees to be successful.