You know that your company’s careers page is essential for improving your candidate experience and appealing to both active and passive talent.
With that in mind, you’re probably also thinking that it’s time to knock the cobwebs off of your own careers page and give it a bit of a facelift (or a major makeover).
But, where do you start? Before you fall down the rabbit hole of all of the different features, tools, and content you could add, it’s important to lay the groundwork with a few best practices.
Here are five core things you should take care of—before you so much as change an image on your careers site.
1. Audit Your Existing Company and Career Content
Careers pages are no longer dumping grounds for plain text job descriptions. When 58% of candidates say that company career sites are the most important resource when researching job opportunities, the best employer brands invest in their careers sites with relevant and impactful content—from photos and videos to employee testimonials.
Now, before you start huffing and puffing into a paper bag at the thought of what an overwhelming task this is, it’s smart to look at what existing content you already have that could be used on your careers site. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here.
That video clip about your annual Halloween costume contest? That could grant people a peek into your company’s fun culture. Those glowing recommendations and compliments that people sent through your employee survey? You could get permission to highlight those as pull quotes.
Make a list of any and all assets that you already have, so that you can have a more solid grasp on what you need created in order to end up with a careers site that really makes an impact.
2. Dig Into Your Data
The best business decisions are backed by data, and your careers site is no different. In order to make changes that truly serve the candidates you want to attract, you first need to understand what’s working on your existing page (as well as what isn’t).
There are tons of different metrics you can dig into here to get an understanding of the whole picture.
What’s the bounce rate of your careers page—do you have a lot of people closing out of your site after just one look at the home page? Which channels are users visiting from most frequently? Do most of your users visit your page on mobile or on desktop? Is there a certain page on your existing careers site that’s way outperforming the rest?
Roll up your sleeves and dig into the data so that you can make important decisions—and get buy-in from company leaders—with the numbers on your side.
3. Understand Where Your Careers Page Fits
Data can be particularly enlightening. However, it’s important to go beyond those digits and also better understand where your careers page fits in your hiring funnel.
For many candidates, the careers page requires a one-time visit—they submit their application and then never return again.
However, the best careers sites are far more engaging than that. It’s the go-to resource talent returns to when they want more information and insider insights ahead of their phone screening or interview. In some cases, candidates can even set up an account and be alerted of new jobs with that employer that match their interests.
Where does your careers site currently fall? And, more importantly, where would you like it to fit in? Knowing what role your careers page plays in your overall recruitment process will help you make changes that contribute to your overarching strategy.
4. Map Out Your Goals
Speaking of strategy, setting some tangible goals and objectives is important for ensuring that your careers page updates will actually push your employer brand forward—rather than just making changes for the sake of it.
Ask yourself: What exactly are you planning to accomplish by revamping your company’s careers site? Do you want to:
- Better tell your company’s story?
- Increase your application rate by a certain percentage?
- Contribute to your employer brand?
There are plenty of goals—from minor milestones to major undertakings—that you can set for your overhauled careers page. But, to stay focused, try to settle on just three key things you’re hoping to achieve.
5. Get Buy-In From Your Team
While you’ll undoubtedly be heavily involved in the process, you won’t be completely redesigning and tweaking your company’s careers site alone.
You’re going to need the buy-in and involvement of numerous other individuals and departments—from top executives to the marketing team to the web development team.
Start with your company’s key decision-makers to ensure that you have the go-ahead to begin this project. Make sure to emphasize the pitfalls of your existing careers site, and how your planned updates would improve the candidate experience (and, thus, the quality of your hires).
After that, it’s time to approach the people who would be actively involved in the project. Come armed with a thoughtful timeline and well-organized action items, so that your colleagues are able to get a true understanding of how this project will fit in with their existing workloads.
You’ve laid the foundation. Now, what else do you need to know to level-up your company’s careers page and talent attraction efforts?
Grab our ebook “5 Top Tips for Creating a Stand-Out Careers Page” to get your hands on all of the advice and examples you need to create a careers page that enlightens and entices the very best talent.
