So last week we did an analysis of Canada’s Top Ten Employment Agencies and how they stack up from an SEO and Social Mention perspective in terms of their abilities to attract both employees but also perspective candidates for their clients.  Today I want to take a closer look at Canada’s Top Ten Employers (Most Attractive Employers) and see how they stack up from an SEO/Social perspective.  Let’s see how able they are to attract Talent via their social channels as well as the relationship between SEO and Employment Brand.

Research in Motion is Canada’s Top Employer — here’s how they rank on Alexa 4,618 (Reputation of 6318).  RIM has 17,500 employees of which 11,091 are on Linkedin (63%) and the RIM Linkedin Company page has 43,165 followers (247%).

 IBM Canada is in second place - Alexa Ranking 525 (Reputation 96,295). IBM Canada has 16,000 employees of which 4,413 are on Linkedin (28%) and the IBM Canada Company page has 7,137 followers (45%).

 McGill University is in third place - Alexa Ranking 398 (Reputation 20,375).  McGill has 9,261 employees of which 5,411 are on Linkedin (58%) and the McGill Company page has 7,559 followers (82%)

 Air Canada is in fourth place - Alexa Ranking 5237 (Reputation 7,545).  Air Canada has 23,180 employees of which 3,868 are on Linkedin (17%) and the Air Canada page has 9,122 followers (39%)

 Bombardier Canada - Alexa Ranking 6194 (Reputation 3,695).  Bombardier Canada has 65,370 employees of which 5,254 are on Linkedin (8%) and the Bombardier page has 11,699 followers (18%)

 Barrick Gold - Alexa Ranking 35,074 (Reputation 851).  Barrick has 16,773 employees of which 3,405 are on Linkedin (20%) and the Barrick page has 13,096 followers (78%).

  Canada Post - Alexa Ranking 62 (Reputation 9,006).  Canada Post has 70,750 employees of which 3,853 are on Linkedin (5%) and the Canada Post page has 4,671 followers (7%)

 Molson Coors - Alexa Ranking 35,673 (Reputation 459).  Molson has 14,660 employees of which 451 are on Linkedin (3%) and the Molson page has 1944 followers (13%)

Hydro Quebec - Alexa Ranking 1379 (Reputation 23,659).  Hydro Quebec has 23,659 employees of which 2,909 are on Linkedin (12%) and the Hydro Quebec page has 4,464 followers (19%)

 Fairmont Hotels - Alexa Ranking 1547 (Reputation 10,313).  Fairmont has 45,672 employees of which 2,308 are on Linkedin (5%) and the Fairmont page has 8,423 followers (18%)

So what conclusions can we reach from this data?

• Obviously of all the employers listed Canada Post is the only one that appears in the top 500 sites in Canada and this is largely due to the number of link backs to the site (Reputation), having said that they haven’t capitalized on the SEO to attract Talent.
• The other obvious correlation is between the Alexa rating and Reputation…reputation is measured by the number of link backs the site receives so it’s inversely related to the Alexa Ranking (higher Reputation number means lower (better) Alexa Rating).  What that means is that you are much more likely to show up in search including employment search.  Given that a strong majority of Canadians start their job search on Google you want your Alexa rating to be as low as possible and reputation high.
• There also seems to be a relation between the number of employees listed on Linkedin and the number of company followers.  This makes sense as most followers will arrive at your company page on Linkedin via your employee’s profiles.  As well, those link backs help you from an SEO perspective as Linkedin is a “Trusted” Google site (meaning it’s more highly indexed than other sites).  So maybe it’s beneficial to your Employment and overall Brand to optimize your digital workforce?
• The interesting thing is that with the exception of RIM most of the top employers are not using Linkedin aggressively for hiring.   Given that RIM is followed by 247% of it’s current employee population it could well almost double it’s size as an employer via the Linkedin channel alone, something that I’m sure is not lost on the RIM Talent Acquisition team.

Food for thought, are you taking advantage of your companies SEO/Social profiles for Hiring?

Geoff Webb - CEO Radical Events