According to the latest surveys, 1/3 of employers use Internet search engines to research potential employees and 10 to 15% use social networking sites in their candidate screening process.

And, more importantly, of those who use;

• Internet search engines to research candidates, half don’t hire the person based on what they find;

• social networking sites to research candidates, more than half don’t hire the person based on what they find.

So we decided that it would be fair for job seekers to be able to do some kind of background check and pre-employment screening too!

We are jobWings.com careers inc., a Canadian company in the online recruiting industry with over 16 specialized job boards. Although we may lose some of our employer customers by going ahead with this project, we decided to do it anyway since we have always considered job seekers as our primary customers.

Any employee or former employee of any given Canadian employer.

Tell the truth – This includes both honesty and transparency. An articulate comment enhances your rating credibility.
Do not personally attack anyone, or mention anyone by name, initials or function.

Rate your current and former employers with detailed comments and spread the word about RME to friends and co-workers.

Any Canadian employer can be rated. However, rating employers with fewer than 20 employees is not recommended since it could be too easy to guess the author of a particular comment.

Any current or former employee of a Canadian employer can rate different aspects such as atmosphere or compensation on a scale of 1 to 5. An average for each aspect as well as an overall score is calculated for a given employer.

The process is not fool-proof! RME is an aid for choosing your next employer wisely. You should review the evaluations critically and be aware that some may be fake, ill-founded or from the employer itself (these are usually obvious). The more ratings on a specific employer, the more representative the overall result should be.

First, do not do a rating from your work computer and do not use your work e-mail address.

Second, please refrain from illegal, obscene, threatening, libellous, racist or other objectionable or injurious content. Internet anonymity has its limits. All Web servers automatically register visitor information such as Internet protocol addresses. If your comment breaches any law or regulation in force in Canada, we could legally be required to transmit any information we may have (IP address, email if provided, date and hour).

We don’t. Anonymity makes such a verification impossible.

Just click on the “Flag as inappropriate” link at the bottom of each comment. When a certain number of people have reported a comment as being inappropriate, it will then be suppressed. Do not click if you disagree with a comment. In such a case, we advise you to respond to the comment.

We don’t, so please use proper language that is suitable for the general public. RME is user moderated. Any comment that violates the terms and conditions of use can be flagged as inappropriate by RME users themselves.

No. There are almost the same number of positive ratings as negative ones. The global average rating on RME is currently 2.95 on a 1-to-5 scale.

Monitor your corporate reputation through this uncontrolled and spontaneous diagnostic tool and possibly take corrective action.

By listening to what is said about you, you could reap the following benefits:

• A faster awareness of glaring issues that you can proactively fix before they affect your corporate reputation.

• A free audit of your employer brand highlighting your strengths and weaknesses.

• A benchmark with your peers from the same industry.

• An alternative to too politically correct, employer-driven, best employer awards.

If your overall score is good, you could consider using RME to empower your recruiting with a link from your corporate career site to your RME ratings.

If your overall score is low, reasons are usually detailed in the raters' comments. It's a good start for a corporate self-assessment.

Send an e-mail to invite all your employees to fill out a rating from home (not on company time; guaranteed confidentiality).

You can’t

As an employer, you can ask for the withdrawal of a comment if the content of such is in breach with RME terms and conditions of use. Send your request to , including the comment itself and the grounds for your request. You will receive an answer within 72 hours.

Disagreeing with a comment does not constitute a motive for its withdrawal. In such a case, you could consider responding to the comment (see next question).

Any employer who wishes to respond officially to a comment may do so by registering. To do this, you must provide the name of a contact person for identification purposes. Any statement by an employer will be clearly identified as being from that employer.

Unanswered questions or suggestions?