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Gone are the days when a company website’s career section is just a listing of jobs and contact info. Today’s candidates expect a quality web experience whether they’re shopping, searching for services, or considering working for a particular company.
While job seekers have many online recruitment channels when looking for employment, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and Google for Jobs, they eventually end up on an employer’s career site. In fact, a Talent Board survey said that 53% of candidates listed a career page as the most valuable channel when job hunting.
With that in mind, your site needs to attract, engage, and ultimately convince people to apply. Here are some essential tips on how to improve your career site and make it more appealing to prospective job seekers.
1. Make it easy to find and navigate.
First and foremost, your site and jobs need to be easy to find. You’d be surprised at how many career sites are challenging to find in the first place. Make sure the careers link is visible on the front of your company page. If you’re a large employer with a constant need for new hires, such as in the retail or medical field, you might want to include the link as part of your main navigation bar.
Once the candidate is on your site, how easy is it for them to navigate? These days, job seekers expect a user experience from a career page similar to buying a product on a consumer site. It should be compelling, but also simple to navigate with sections that are clearly defined.
Place the job search button or field prominently. If a prospect feels they’re wasting too much time trying to find info or an open position they’re interested in, you’ve lost them to another employer.
Pro tip: When candidates are looking for a job, they’re not necessarily looking for the location. Apple allows users to filter search results by business type, job function, language, keyword, and location. Not every career page listing needs this type of functionality, but anything that makes job openings easier to find for a prospect is a plus.
Lastly, make sure your application process is clean and streamlined. You’ll lose candidates if they have to fill out several pages of information before they can even apply.
2. Consider search engine optimization (SEO).
Within the site, make sure your job titles clearly define the role to help with SEO potential. Getting too creative in the job titles (e.g., Lead Imaginator, Chief Marketing Guru, etc.) might showcase a fun company culture but probably won’t help with your reach results.
Additionally, add custom URLs, custom page titles, and job postings that are keyword rich to increase your chances of higher search engine rankings and improve visibility.
3. Optimize it for mobile.
Make sure your career page is responsive for desktop, tablet, and mobile. Today’s job seeker is part of the mobile generation. If the information on the desktop version gets jumbled or is hard to see on a mobile device, chances are you’ve lost a potential job applicant.
With 18% of job seekers applying from a mobile device and another 29% using both mobile devices and desktops to apply, it’s essential to provide a mobile-optimized application process, according to Jobvite’s 2020 Job Seeker Nation report.
4. Don’t forget branding.
The site should also reflect the overall brand of the main website. Elements such as brand color, typeface, imagery, and formatting should also be applied to the career site.
A little deviation from the main site is useful, as it makes the career site a little more special to candidates. But a different look, mood, and feel will confuse the viewer as to whether they’re seeking employment for another company.
5. Tell your company story.
The content on your career page should give the candidate insights into your company values and culture. You need to answer the question: why would someone want to work here?
They might be able to get some of that information from the “About Us” page on the main website, but it should be easily accessible on the jobs page as well.
Go beyond the written content by giving job seekers a real peek behind the scenes at your employee experience. You can do this through compelling employee photos, workplace images, positive testimonials, listing benefits and perks, and educational/training opportunities.
Pro tip: Showcase much of that information in a short video or series of videos about your company. Using video to communicate a genuine representation of your company’s work style and culture connects with the right candidates more effectively. It’s probably the best platform to get the viewer to understand what your company is all about in the shortest amount of time.
Since this video will contain such crucial information, try not to skimp on video production. Ideally, you’d want to hire a videographer or studio who has experience producing engaging company videos. It doesn’t need to cost a fortune, but you can’t expect to end up with a well-produced and engaging product on a shoestring budget.
Below is an excellent example from Pinterest that tells you everything you need to know about what it’s like to work there. It’s creatively executed and especially good at showcasing positive company culture.
You can also add videos to individual job descriptions for hard-to-fill or high volume roles. For jobs that need an extra attractor, interview employees who already work on those teams about what exactly their job entails and why they love working at your company more than anywhere they’ve worked before. Then, embed them into your job description pages for an enhanced storytelling experience for candidates.
6. Personalize everything you can.
To make your career page even more engaging, it’s a good idea to personalize the candidate experience wherever you can.
One way to accomplish this is by adding a chatbot to your site. Chatbots can help job seekers with frequently asked questions, stay updated during the hiring process, schedule interviews, and more. Some examples of companies offering chatbots for recruitment include Olivia, Textrecruit, and Brazen.
Another way you can personalize your career page is to use location targeting to automatically present a candidate with jobs that are local or in their own language.
7. Try gamification.
You can also make your initial candidate assessment more engaging through gamification. For example, Pymetrics offers an assessment experience in which the candidate plays neuroscience games. These “games” actually measure a set of traits and abilities such as attention span, risk-taking, and pattern recognition. Gamified assessments can easily captivate candidates with their fun nature.
Here is a quick video of Aon’s smartPredict assessments, which does a great job of illustrating what gamification can look like:
A well-crafted career page can be one of the best channels for attracting the right candidates. It should express and inspire quality talent to join the company.
Of course, a total redesign can be a challenging and expensive prospect. You can always start by incorporating some of these ideas into your current site. Including a video on the site if you don’t have one is an excellent example of improving engagement without totally starting from square one.
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