Roxanne Abercrombie
When you think of internal recruitment tools for your business, you probably think of using paid adverts, job board listings and social media posts. Missing from this list, rather ominously, is the company careers page. Too often, businesses make the mistake of overlooking the importance of an effective careers page. Yes, most companies have a careers page integrated within their website and use it to post vacancies, but that’s usually where the consideration ends.
In an age where businesses are built or broken by the strength of their brands, a carefully crafted careers page is key to success. Put simply, it’s a recruitment catalyst. More than that, though, it’s a platform for you to showcase your culture and create a buzz around your company. Use it.
How many times have you read a company statement which asserts that: “People are at the heart of our business”? Similarly, how many careers pages have you come across that are growing cobwebs in a shadowy corner of a website, developed only to the extent that they list current vacancies? In 2015, it’s astonishing how many businesses have bad careers pages. (Hence the number of articles you’ll find online celebrating great examples!) If you’re guilty of neglecting your careers page, it’s time to make the change.
Be a story-teller
When you read a story, you want to know who, what and why. So do candidates when they’re visiting your careers page. A dry page with no interesting content isn’t going to win you clicks and it certainly isn’t going to win you top candidates.
So, let your careers content tell a tale by explaining who you are, what you do and why you do it. Don’t structure this information like a formal presentation: keep it light, fun and brief. Your aim here should be to give candidates a sneak peek into your company and its story, encouraging them to buy in to your journey.
Sell your culture
What factors do you think are the most important in winning talent to your business? Money? Working hours? Benefits? All wrong. By far the most important thing you can offer candidates is a great company culture.
Use your careers page to shout your culture from the rooftops, letting candidates see exactly what they’re getting when they join your business. In today’s world of ultimate transparency, you need to make sure that your culture is visible to the world. Show what makes you different and what you have to offer. Don’t let a careers page be an impersonal wall of vacancies: let it be an embodiment of your vibrant business.
Get real
Stock photos are the death of careers pages. Do you really think that candidates can’t tell the difference between a fake downloaded image and a real photograph? By nature, people are hungry for reality and will be curious to see the people who they could potentially work with every day. Give candidates what they’re looking for and show them real (and therefore engaging) pictures of the team, of the office and of staff days out.
Similarly, use genuine quotes from employees on what your company is like to work for, not fake testimonials clearly written by a professional. Even better, incorporate feedback from Glassdoor. Candidates will almost certainly find these reviews if they do their company research, so why not bring it all together in one place? Shout about the reality of a job in your business. Being honest and giving your employees a voice is a sure-fire way to win trust and win the applications that follow.
Integrate social media
Links to your various social channels are no longer enough. A button sitting on your careers page does very little and garners no guaranteed click-throughs. A live feed streaming through the page, however, adds both movement and personality.
If you’re using your social channels properly, they should be human accounts which drive engagement: harness them. Social media is the personable voice of your business, and a careers page is a platform for your company culture. It quite naturally follows that the two should be linked together, giving candidates a feel for who you are and what you’re about. Plus, social integration makes it that bit easier for candidates to stalk you socially (which, let’s face it, they’re going to do anyway before applying for a job with your business.)
Video, video, video
This doesn’t mean an advert for the company taken directly from your Youtube account. Think outside the box and share meaningful video content, not stilted sales pitches.
Why not share videos of your team in action, brief interviews with employees about a day in their life and fun welcome messages from the leadership team? It’s this kind of content that will win views and pique interest, making for a substantially more successful careers page.
Encourage contact
If you’re encouraging people to reach out and apply for your jobs, you have to be reachable. Make it quick and easy for people to get in touch with you, whether that’s in the form of a live chat option, an integrated contact form, a separate, job-specific email address clearly listed in a ‘contact us’ banner, or even a comments/feedback option. Whichever route best suits your resources, just be sure you use and respond to it effectively.
As well as encouraging written contact, make it an option for candidates to show speculative interest by submitting a CV. It may well be the case that a candidate has browsed your careers page and not found a suitable job, even though they like the look and feel of your company. In this kind of scenario, your page should provide an easy option to submit a CV or to sign up for job email notifications. By doing so, you’ll boost engagement as well as attraction.
Don’t make people jump through hoops
It’s simple, if your jobs can’t be found within one click on your site, they’re too difficult to access. A careers page doesn’t belong as a tiny subheading in an “about us” dropdown menu: it’s a valuable section within its own right. If your want your jobs to be seen, just give them visibility.
When people find your jobs, they shouldn’t have to undergo a lengthy, annoying process to apply for them. Candidates shouldn’t be forced to register in order to apply, and they won’t want to fill out a series of pages with the exact same information that’s provided on their CV. Working for your company isn’t a drag, so applying to it shouldn’t be either.
Jazz up your job ads
There’s not a great deal of point in making such an effort with your careers page if your job adverts are dull, dry and unappealing. Try to carry across the personality and engagement you’ve built throughout the page and include job adverts with a little flair.
That strong company culture you’ve been promoting should flavor the way you describe your vacancies. Jobs that are written clearly and correctly are always effective. Jobs that also reflect your company culture, however, are that extra bit more attractive. Do yourself a favor and do your job ads justice.
If executed correctly, a careers page can be one of the most compelling sections of your website. Take the time to make yours a recruitment godsend, not a dreary dead end.
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