Employer brand

9 Things You Should Be Doing on Your Company’s Careers Website

Social media, word of mouth, and job ads are helpful for attracting candidates to your company. But, they all lead directly back to your company’s careers website. That means that if your careers site isn’t engaging, it doesn’t matter how great the tactics you used to get them there are. They’ll simply lose interest.

In other words, the career page has to be the anchor holding together the pieces of your hiring strategy. And while the page should showcase the available openings and the nitty gritty details of applying for a job, it still needs to be creative, memorable, and always on brand.

These nine elements from existing companies’ attention-grabbing career pages show you the components you need.

1. Mobile-optimize for a mobile generation

You can no longer get away with a career webpage and job listings that aren’t optimized for a mobile device. Rather than zoom and squint and constantly shift the screen, potential job applicants will just X out and potentially never return.

Marriott International knows this and has developed a crisp mobile career page that streamlines the information in a way that isn’t overwhelming, but still gives your audience everything they need to know.

career webpage

2. Don’t forget SEO

You carefully constructed an SEO strategy across your company website - don’t let it falter on the careers webpage. Don’t get funky with job titles (i.e. Chief Creativity Officer, Lead Imaginator, etc). Sure, they showcase a fun company culture, but there are other ways to do that without decimating SEO potential.

Airbnb clearly tells its company story and highlights its brand without having to resort to these tactics. And, bonus, Airbnb makes social sharing a priority, with buttons clearly visible on every page of the careers webpage.

career page

3. Offer an inside look with a video

If your careers webpage doesn’t include any video, you’re falling behind the pack. Lyft’s career page video perfectly showcases the company culture, without sacrificing any important information. Often, it does so with little to no words. Take a look:

There are pictures of employee’s dogs lounging on plush sofas, employees playing ping pong and car games, and an overhead shot of everyone eating lunch together in a unique space.

Your videos don’t have to be long—in fact, short is best—but they can make a big difference. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words of copy telling visitors about company culture, people, the brand, and the work environment.

4. Show potential hires where they would fit

People looking for a job sometimes need to be pointed in the right direction. Your company can offer that leading hand, showing them the door into a role in your organization.

Metaswitch offers website visitors fun brain teasers to help them see if they are right for software engineering. It doesn’t feel like homework, it feels like games.

Similarly, SpaceX’s careers webpage breaks down how people from all different industries, who may not have seen themselves at the company, can find a place that fits. Edward Jones has a “career fit tool” that has website visitors taking a Buzzfeed-like quiz that shows them exactly where they could find a role within the company. 

career page

5. Sell them on why they should want to work for you

Smart recruiters know that hiring is a two-way street. Not only do you have to hand pick a candidate, job seekers have to pick a company. So, insure your company careers page answers this question: Why would someone want to work for you?

And don’t just allude to it, lay the answer out directly. Deloitte, for example, has a list of top 10 reasons to join the firm on its career site, featuring details on benefits, work/life balance, perks, and opportunities for advancement.

career page

6. Use your product in innovative ways

Spotify has a clever way of bringing its own product into its careers webpage in a way that doesn’t seem self-promotional. Every potential hire wants to know more about the people that work at the company, and Spotify gives them that answer by showing visitors employee’s own Spotify playlists. It’s fun and innovative and it stays on brand—plus it shows so much more than a 100-word bio could.

Maybe your product isn’t as exciting as a music streaming service, but think outside the box as to how you can make your own tools work for you.

career page

7. Help candidates find what they’re looking for

When job seekers are looking for a job, they’re not always looking simply by location. A career page should take that into account. Apple, for example, has a job search tool that lets people search by business line, job function, and language skills in addition to keyword and location.

While not every company is large enough to necessitate this, any organization can follow Apple’s lead of making job openings as easy as possible to find for people who are actively looking.

careers page

8. Don't overcomplicate it

There is a fine line between offering all these search features like Apple, and making job search a complicated and confusing process. The application experience should be streamlined, allowing a job seeker to apply in as few steps as possible.

Workday uses its own SaaS product to allow prospective hires to apply via LinkedIn, without having to save and attach a separate resume and without awkwardly pre-filling a form. 

careers page

9. Let applicants know what to expect

AirCanada Rouge doesn’t just give people the tools to apply to a job, they break down exactly what applicants can expect from the process. It gives potential hires a sense of ease and understanding, and it probably saves a company from loads of emails with the same questions.

Similarly, Boston Consulting Group offers their careers webpage visitors tips on how to excel in an interview with their company, as well as a wealth of other applicant insider info.

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