How to make most of the most important page on your website for attracting talent.
I gave a presentation about employer branding to a group of manufacturers recently. I asked the audience what I thought was an easy question to get some interaction–”How many of you have a careers page on your website?”
I was surprised when less than half of the group said that they did. Attracting and retaining talent was the top challenge for many of the people in the room. Yet, not even 50% had a place on their website where candidates could apply for a job. I thought to myself, We need to fix this. Pronto.
What goes into making a good careers page? Like Elon Musk says, “It’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.”
Let’s start with a definition:
A careers page is a webpage that showcases a company’s employer brand, culture, and job openings.
Clear enough. So what goes into making a great careers page?
1. Create an Overarching Theme
An employer branding theme is composed of a headline, tagline, and visuals that differentiate one company from another. This is where human resources and marketing need to lock themselves in a room and not come out until they’re on the same page about what sets the company apart. After that’s agreed to, set marketing free to come up with a catchy and memorable theme to guide the company’s hiring efforts.
2. Let Your Employees Tell Your Story
It’s one thing to tell the world how great your company is; it’s entirely another to have your employees do it for you. Testimonials work because they’re not sales pitches. They’re unbiased, authentic accounts directly from your team. Photos, quotes, and videos are a great way to establish trust and credibility with job candidates and show your current employers you value how they feel about the company.
3. Highlight Your Benefits
This is where you shine, HR people. You know these benefits like the backside of your hand. This is your health insurance, 401(k) match, vacation time, tuition reimbursement, etc. And don’t forget the soft bennies. Do you allow employees to flex their time so they can make it to their kid’s sports games? What monthly employee appreciation lunches? How about pet insurance? (Yes, that’s a thing.) Tag in your marketing peeps to zhuzh up these benefits to appeal to potential employees.
4. Showcase Your Culture
If there’s one thing social media’s good for besides posting pictures of your kids and funny videos, it’s showcasing a company’s culture. Highlighting company meetings, team outings, cookouts, and daily life gives outsiders a glimpse into what it’s like to work at your company. Putting together a social media strategy is a great way to add structure to your efforts and leave room to capture moments as they happen.
5. Add a Careers Page Link to the Main Navigation
Adding a Careers link—not Employment Opportunities (boring) or Jobs (transitory)—in the main navigation is an easy way to drive traffic to your careers page. This not only shows the importance of careers to job applications and employees, but it also signifies that your company is growing, which is a great message to send to customers as well. That’s a powerful double-whammy.
6. Have Clear Calls to Action (CTA)
A call to action or CTA is a design element, usually a button, to prompt a response or encourage an action like viewing a webpage or filling out a form. Using well-designed calls to action on your careers page will call attention to important actions. Common CTAs include “Apply Now”, “Learn More,” and “Watch Video”. CTAs also allows you to report back on how your campaign is working (see #8 for more info).
7. Make It Mobile-Friendly
According to SearchMetrics, 8.5 of the top ten organic (unpaid) search results on the first page of Google lead to a mobile website. In addition, over half of internet users worldwide operate mobile and tablet devices. Having a mobile-friendly website is a nonnegotiable nowadays. If your website is not responsive, call your web developer today and make it so.
8. Measure the Performance
What gets measured gets done. Setting a goal and measuring the result lets you know if your marketing is actually working. Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to measure the performance of your careers page. Reports are typically prepared monthly or quarterly to show how the page is working and allow you to make adjustments to any hiring efforts.
There you have it. Eight simple tips for making a careers page that will knock job candidates dead. Putting these into place will get you one step closer to your next ideal hire.
