Far too many organisations are missing out on recruiting top talent because their careers site just doesn’t make the grade

If you take a look at your company’s website, you may be able to beam with pride. It may be a thing of beauty; a technological marvel with all the bells and whistles it needs to attract customers or clients, engage with them, bring them back to you time after time. You could have everything you need to inspire loyalty and create a tribe of followers who will sing your name from the rooftops. Now click on the tab labelled “Careers” …

All too often it is the one area of big organisations’ websites that is sadly lacking or overlooked completely and yet it is as important to the future of the company as are its sales pages.

Do any of these sound uncomfortably familiar?

1. You click on the careers tab and you will find a page that might say something like, “If you are interested in a career with us then use the contact form below”. A potential candidate may look at that and think, “well yeah, I’d like to work for you but what positions do you have to offer?”
2. You click on the careers tab and you will find a page with a list of current vacancies. There might be a bit of detail about what is expected of the candidate in terms of qualifications, skills and experience and what their duties would entail were they to be successful, but does it sparkle like the rest of your website? Does it offer the opportunity for candidates to properly interact with it? Is there embedded video showing off what a great company it is to work for and what you are aiming to achieve? Can they upload their CV or video CV? Communication during the recruitment process is key!
3. You click on the careers tab and find a sparsely populated page with a link to another website. This is your recruitment site and, let’s be honest, it’s a bit clunky and belongs in the 90s. It has some third-party recruitment software that you picked up on the cheap, it’s not really all that attractive, it’s a bit slow and has no guarantees that it is secure. Would you upload personal information to a site that cannot guarantee its safety?

What do any of the above suggest about your company and your attitude towards your staff? What does it say about your brand? Like we’ve discussed before on this blog – “your brand is something that should be at the very core of everything you do as an organisation. How you are perceived by others outside your company is all important and this should be a consideration throughout the recruitment process.” If you present a recruitment website like the one outlined above, no matter how much candidates like the idea of working for you they will navigate away from your site and head to the better recruitment website owned by your competitors.

It cannot be overstated how important it is to achieve a smooth flow between your main website and your recruitment presence. If your home page is good, your recruitment page/site should be just as good. For the sake of your branding there must be consistency.

If you are maintaining a careers section as part of your main site, then it must be as attractive as the rest of the site to bring in engage with the very best candidates. It should promise excellence and opportunity, and this must start with the user experience on your site. To embed the latest recruitment software, speak to Recruitive at your first opportunity.

When considering your careers website, you need to be asking yourself these questions:

• Is it secure?
• Is it fast and responsive?
• Is it easily navigable?
• Is it attractive enough to engage?
• Is it fully GDPR compliant?
• Is it compatible with all your potential candidates’ mobile devices?
• Does it really represent the professional image your business is trying to present?

Now refer to your existing site and see how many of these questions result in affirmative answers. If it is less than 7 you need to consider rethinking and updating your site because anything missing from that list is a severe handicap to your online recruitment efforts.

If you want a recruitment website individually tailored to your company, that reflects positively on your brand and relies on the most cutting-edge recruitment software on the market, contact Recruitive today.