Why Your Career Site is More Important TODAY Than Ever Before!
There is a great show on FYI called “Zombie House Flipping”. The hosts find abandoned foreclosed homes not lived in for years and renovate them for a potential profit. Bugs, mold, rats, termites, water damage and horrible odors all define a zombie house. After months of renovations with construction renovation experts, these places are transformed into highly desirable properties.
Can the same be said for your company’s career website? Was it designed years ago and since then, has had no major renovations? Do you even know how many people visit and apply to jobs on your own website? If you are like most companies then you have no idea.
If you do a lot of hiring (especially for hard to fill positions), your career site has to be updated to provide access and information to interested passive candidates to help “sell” your jobs. If your career site isn’t appealing, your companies reputation will be in the hands of 3rd party review sites like GlassDoor and Google reviews. You have an opportunity to not only control your message but make a compelling reason for qualified candidates to hit the apply button.
If you ever bought a home (huge investment), you will search every possible site for information on the home, past owners, school districts, pictures, and crime stats. A job seeker is making a HUGE investment in you and will only “buy” if it feels the job is a good career fit. A zombie career site will not get applications. However, if you can redesign your site and focus it on hitting your target candidate, you will see more qualified application than ever before.
A great career site has many elements:
- Mobile and desktop friendly. With over 50% of job search traffic accessing jobs via mobile, many career sites are unreadable on a smart phone. If the top candidate finds your job during their lunch hour on their phone but can’t access your career website for more information, they will never return.
- Make mobile and desktop site easy to navigate. Today's web design is simple. Users like clean interfaces that require very few clicks to get the information they desire. When a job seeker searches a job on your career site, what happens? So many career sites “redirect” the job seeker to their application tracking system right away and in some cases even make them look up the job again. More importantly, it pulls them away from your “selling points” on your career site. (All of the examples below show world class navigation that is easy to use and POWERFUL)
- Visual, Visual, Visual. People like to see high quality photos, videos, and social of your company. Get a professional photographer to take pictures of your work environments, company events, interviews with the hiring authorities and employees as well as location. This really humanizes your employment brand.
- Own the applicant experience. The goal of a career site is to get qualified candidates to apply to your jobs. The challenge is understanding today’s career site doesn’t start with the job search engine but rather the compelling story on why you should apply.This is done through great design, visuals and outstanding navigation.Once the job seeker applies, the best career sites will give them clear expectations on next steps; even job seekers that may not have all the qualifications.
Think of your 2017 career website like you are selling your own house. Make your site visual, easy to navigate with well documented information on why someone would want to work for your company. Also, don’t make the job seekers jump through hoops to apply to your jobs.
Here are some awesome examples of excellent career websites:
