If you don’t put as much effort into your Careers section as you do with your Homepage the candidate won’t bother to stick around.

You would be very surprised just how many huge organisations have really poor careers websites! It appears sometimes as though they don’t care what people think of them or what message they are conveying to potential future employees. It is often the case, however, that the design and functionality of their websites are limited by their Applicant Tracking Software or recruitment software suppliers who only offer limited website integration services.

Time and time again we’ve seen websites designed by agencies that have an absolutely stunning Homepage that is guaranteed to catch the eye of the visitor. Then, as they progress through to the Careers tab, they are greeted with the ordinary. There might be a plain page with a contact form that just suggests “If you want a job drop us an email and we’ll get back to you, if we get the time”…potential star employee? Gone!

There might be a list of jobs as long as your arm (depending on the size of your organisation) on the page for them to scroll down, eventually they might land on something suitable…see ya!

I know we’ve discussed this before, but this is important to get right. The careers section of your website represents you and your brand and in business the integrity of your brand is everything. Unless you pay attention to what potential candidates need then they will think less of you and be off to your competitors’ sites where they will be greeted a bit more warmly.

Have a think about it from their perspective, what would you want to see when you get to your careers page? What would motivate you to apply? Would you rather scroll down a list of jobs that give no indication whether or not they are current vacancies? Of course not! You want to be able to quickly and easily navigate to the position that requires the qualifications, skills and experience that you have to offer by using job filters.

Do you want to see a plain page? No! You want to see a page that positively bursts out of the screen to grab you. You want to see photographs of happy, smiling people working for the company. You want lots of information about who you are, what you do, what you are trying to achieve as a team and the reasons why it is so great working for you.

Everything needs to be easy to use and navigate, that’s why UX (user experience) is as important as the coder and the arty designer. You don’t need layer upon layer of pages and links to separate sites, you are just leading them into a maze and it won’t be long before they give up and click away.

The problem is the average attention span is widely acknowledged to be dropping. This is especially true when visiting websites, the user is not going to hang around and may be gone in under a minute. You must not only catch the users’ attention, but you need to hold it. If you aren’t holding their attention, perhaps your competitor is, which means they will have the pick of the best candidates.

Make sure everything is compatible with all of their devices; who sits down in front of a PC anymore? Make it as simple as possible to apply with a mobile phone or tablet. Let them upload any documents, CVs or video CVs if they need to. Make all of your SEO relevant across your website. Prioritise security throughout and be compliant with GDPR, it would be an expensive mistake if you didn’t stick to the rules.

Don’t just make the Homepage wonderful, make the whole site wonderful. Every single part of your website matters. Control the flow of visitors navigating through your site. Take them on a journey from the Homepage to the Careers section, to their job description, to the application, to the interview to the first day at work for your company. Let it flow. Be professional. Your brand is important to you – make it important to them.

Many sites look good but lack vital functionality. Your software choices are of major importance. Recruitive is the industry leader in innovative, award-winning recruitment software. Our highly advanced Applicant Tracking System will allow you to communicate with all relevant parties and follow the progress of every candidate throughout the recruitment process from initial interest to bringing them aboard.

Why not Take Part in Our Survey about your careers website.

Contact Recruitive today and make recruitment a little less scary than Halloween.