A company’s corporate career site provides a great opportunity to showcase the true value proposition of an employer and can provide compelling reasons for both active and passive candidates to learn more and eventually express an interest in working for the company.
Words, pictures, tweets and videos all play a role in positioning your organization as a leading employer. When creating a strategy for a career website, the overall design and content are the two most important factors to take into consideration. However, these two factors should not overshadow a site visitor’s ability to get the information they need in order to make the decision on whether or not to take the next step in completing an application.
As more and more marketing and talent acquisition leaders invest in creating an employment brand and optimizing their career sites, there are many factors to consider. Here are 4 do’s and don’ts I believe lay the foundation for a career site that will shine in comparison to many of the typical others on the web.
1. Social media
Don’t: Only provide links to your social channels
Do: Integrate social into your career site. As an example, create a Twitter wall of love that showcases what your customers or employees are saying about you. Check out this example from Slack.
2. Employee engagement and feedback
- Don’t: Use stock photography and quotes from your employees that your marketing team created on their behalf. Expecting a job seeker to read the fluff isn’t going to result in an accurate assessment of culture fit.
- Do: Leverage and incorporate real quotes from your annual employee engagement survey and feedback from other sources like Glassdoor. They’re going to find it throughout their research process anyway.
3. Career site content
- Don’t: Rely on the same information every other company has on their career site to set yourself apart from the competition (diversity statement, basic list of benefits, a company commercial from YouTube, etc.).
- Do: Focus on meaningful content to aid site visitors in making a decision on whether or not your company is a good fit. Include videos that highlight the important role your employees play in making the company successful. Other examples include showcasing a live video feed from diversity groups in action, community giving campaigns, culture webinars, or publishing podcasts. Establish your company as an authority and leader in your industry.
4. Target audience and job seeker personas
- Don’t: Have a “one-size-fits-all” approach for your site.
- Do: Understand the demographics and multiple personas of site visitors and job seekers (active, passive, full time, part time, students, etc.). Use this information to create compelling content and a corporate career site with custom landing pages directly from your applicant tracking system.
The process of appealing to a job seeker typically begins with your career site. Today’s candidate is looking for information that is both engaging and appeals to them. The more authentic and targeted of an approach you take, the higher likelihood of a conversion. This column This column originally appeared on Inc.
