An online career section of a company website used to be considered optional and nice to have, but since the pandemic changed the hiring process, it has become the foundation of an employer recruitment marketing strategy. Large or small, for-profit or nonprofit, in all sectors and industries — recruiters are struggling to attract candidates for various reasons. If your firm doesn’t yet have an online career section consider the fact that research shows that an organization’s career page is the No. 1 place candidates go to check out a company. Here are some quick benefits of having one and tips on best practices:
- Candidates want to know about your company’s culture, values, benefits, mission and vision and a career page is a great place to relay those selling points. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s just a place to list jobs and job descriptions. Use the opportunity to showcase your organization and the advantages of a career with your firm with engaging copy and photos. The career page is a sales tool.
- A career pages streamlines the recruitment process, saving your HR staff valuable time in posting and taking down down jobs that have been filled. It’s much more efficient to direct prospects to a career section of the website so they can view all the information, than it is for your staff to field phone calls and emails.
- It encourages referrals, as a career pages shows the full breadth of all the job openings. Consider the candidate who may not be right for a job, but knows someone who is. It’s much more likely they will pass it on if it’s easy to do.
- Make sure your career page reflects the company brand. Include your marketing/communications team in the writing and design of the page. The career section could become the most-trafficked section of your website, which can overflow to other areas of your business.
- Job openings make great content for social media (especially LinkedIn) and e-blasts. The posts should link to your website and can easily be shared and go viral.
- A career page is a gold mine for search engine optimization (SEO) and organic web traffic. Utilize key words and phrases to elevate search results. Most job seekers start out looking for a job with a simple google search.
- Make the career page mobile-friendly and easy to use. According to a Pew Research Center study,43% of smartphone users have used their phone to seek out information about a job, with 18% of those users submitting a job application. Remember user-friendly, easy to read and intuitive so candidates don’t abandon your site in frustration.
- Showcase Real Employees: The best assets of a company are employees and your career page can help potential employees picture themselves on the team. Gather testimonials. Publish customers’ letters of appreciation. Celebrate employee milestones like promotions, awards and birthdays. Feature team-building activities, extracurricular outings, trainings. Photograph real employees, shoot quick videos and publish a regular company newsletter that gets posted on the website. It will take time to build up the photos and stories, but once momentum is built, candidates will be attracted to a company that takes the time to appreciate its employees and word of mouth will gain traction. Employers may be tentative in featuring actual employees, but most staff will sign off on permission and the effort will go a long way in nurturing authenticity.
- Use QR codes on printed flyers, trucks, cars, billboards, bus ads — anything that is printed or static — as a way to drive traffic to the online career page. QR codes act as a short-cut mechanism to any content on a website.
