For job seekers, career sites help uncover employment opportunities and provide an overview of the open positions and the companies they may be interested in. For organizations, these career sites are a powerful tool when it comes to increasing the candidate pool and finding top talent. With a vast array of career sites now available to job seekers, it is increasingly important for employers to convey and improve upon their employer brand. In the following, we will delve into the best practices for doing just that, with some actionable tips and ideas to get you started.
An essential part of recruiting top talent, employer branding is how your organization is perceived online. A strong employer brand will encourage prospective employees to consider your company and apply for open positions. A strong employer brand can reduce the cost per hire by as much as 50%, and a negative reputation can cost a company as much as 10% more per hire. Relaying this brand messaging on career sites will help you stand out from the competition and attract desired candidates.
Since career sites emerged, there has been a rapid increase in the number of options that employers and job seekers have available to them. From job boards to aggregators, social media channels, apps, networking groups, and more, hundreds of choices are now available. Besides the likes of LinkedIn, having a user-friendly, all-encompassing online recruiting hub on your company website can truly help for years to come. When exploring potential opportunities, the company’s website is often one of the first impressions a job seeker has of your organization.
Besides getting an overview of the company, products and services, and values, the career page is frequently viewed to discover open positions. However, many career sites simply list open positions and leave much to be desired. Here are the best practices that our team has compiled for improving your employer brand on career sites:
Make it easy to find
Having a career site is one thing. Making it easy to find through website navigation, hyperlinks, and other methods will ensure you maximize the traffic to the page. Although you may drive traffic directly to your specific career site page, other visitors will land on your homepage, blog posts, and other content. With that in mind, some of the best practices include linking your career site in your top menu navigation, in the website footer, and by using visual banners or graphics that will show up on most, if not all pages, regardless of which they are reading.
Make the page user friendly and keep it organized
Once a visitor lands on your career site page, it is important to keep them engaged, allowing them to spend an adequate amount of time looking at positions and learning about your company. One such way to ensure that this happens is to make the page user-friendly, and well-organized. As an example, if you have many open positions in various departments throughout the organization, you will want a job seeker to be able to quickly filter and find the targeted roles that they are interested in. If that is hard to do or they experience any confusion, it will lead to visitors quickly exiting and leaving the page. Lastly, be sure the pages are mobile-friendly as the majority of visitors will be on mobile devices.
Add engaging visuals
One proven method of keeping visitors engaged is through the use of informative visuals and graphics. This can include the use of videos, infographics, charts, and other industry and job-related information that will pique the interest of the visitor. As an example, use video to highlight the company culture or use brand ambassadors to relay the personalities of the organization. Graphics might include the benefits and perks of working for the company, for example, as visuals are much easier to quickly digest than paragraphs of written text.
Provide an emotional connection
Showcasing information about your company values, mission, and social initiatives can resonate with prospective employees. Placing this information on the career site is crucial and will play a role in attracting more talent. Inspire visitors with stories that appeal to their emotions and have them see themselves as a part of the company that is making a difference in society. Be sure to include your employer value proposition and any other differentiators that can influence the job seeker to apply within.
With the aforementioned tips and a dialed-in career site, your employer branding will receive a boost and will improve your recruiting and hiring efforts. Take the time to re-evaluate your career site to see what can be adjusted and make those changes quickly. In turn, you are sure to see more targeted candidates apply and more open positions filled. In today’s labor market, it is more important than ever.
