Employment31 Jul 2023
The importance of a well-designed careers page for your company's website
Why is a Careers Page essential for a company website?
Want to know what it’s like to work at a company? Prospective employees are doing their research and the go-to place for jobs is a company’s Career Page or Careers Website. A Careers Page or Pages helps employers showcase the company's purpose, culture, values and most importantly the authentic employee experience. It can also help reduce the cost of recruiting employees, owing to the extended reach of the website to candidates. Career sites can also include the opportunity to join a Talent Community which again can help minimise the time and cost of hiring new employees.
Common Career Page elements include job openings, people and culture videos and stories and imagery of people at work and how they work as a team. It may also feature benefits/perks that employees can receive, learning and development, sustainability, and policies around equal opportunity and diversity and inclusion. Plus any new announcements/news to keep the information fresh and informative.
Prospective employees look for all these elements on a Careers Page to build credibility and trust, helping them to decide whether the employer is worth working for or not.
Whether your organisation already has a Careers Page, wants to redesign one, or starting from scratch, Belong Creative has over a decade experience bringing Employee Value Propositions to life through digital creative content. We can help you design an outstanding Careers Page that will attract and engage visitors so they can make a ‘better fit’ decision for their next career move.
What can a Careers Page do for your business?
A Careers Page offers an employer the advantage of branding the company’s employment experience. Apart from branding, the Careers Page also provides the following benefits:
1. Helps reduce the cost of hiring new employees
2. Enhances Employer Brand perceptions
3. Makes hiring more easy
4. Converts visitors to job applicants
5. Assists Human Resource department
6. Conveys the work culture
How does a Careers Page help your Employer Brand?
The Careers Pages or Careers website brings to life your Employee Value Proposition in a more tangible and accessible way. It is a lighthouse for your Employer Brand by emphatically advocating what the organisation stands for and looks like as a workplace from the inside. It provides credibility through ‘evidence’ like authentic storytelling, so your Employer Brand builds trust and recall for the right associations. It is a centralised hub that all employment marketing can point back to and convert interested job seekers into potential employees.
Importance of a well-designed Careers Page
A Careers Page, designed effectively, attracts potential employees and builds a candidate pipeline for recruitment. A Careers Page provides the following benefits to an organisation:
A Careers Page on a corporate website contains information catered to the needs of candidates applying for jobs. The page contains content related to companies' values, culture, job postings, people stories and employee benefits. This helps attract top talent since candidates want to look for what the organisation provides to employees and relatable employee stories before applying for a role.
The content present on the Careers Page ideally contains all relevant information about job opportunities, company information, benefits and policies related to work. The employee-related information helps prospective candidates to make informed decisions. If a candidate has a question about working for the organisation - this is where you answer it.
Often the job application process is tedious for employees. Employers must make the application process easy to complete and share any collected data for other employment processes to help personalise and engage candidates on the journey. Your Careers Page can include a process flow for the recruitment experience so candidates can know what to expect. You can also include interview tips to ensure your prospects show up putting their best foot forward.
The Careers Page helps engage potential candidates. Increased engagement occurs when the page includes videos, images, and testimonials about employee experiences and work culture. The engagement becomes even more evident when the organisation can demonstrate how it cares about the employees shown in both the written and design aspects of the Careers Page.
A well crafted Careers Page can be a point of inspiration for prospective candidates. Armed with so many questions, your Careers Page acts as a filter to help deter the wrong type of talent and engage and excite the right type.
A UX-optimised, SEO-optimised and graphically enhanced Careers Pages help candidates feel they have all their burning questions answered in a seamless journey of discovery. All pointing them to apply for their next ideal role.
The candidate feels respected and valued when the Careers Page has all the ingredients to engage them and help them make an informed decision.
Using website analytic tools, you can track how candidates behave on your Careers Pages and better understand which pages and what type of content is engaging your audience. This gives you insight as to what to focus on, either extend or enhance to create a more compelling online experience.
Elements of a great Careers Page
A Careers Page is a key ingredient for any organisation to create an Employer Brand that attracts, engages and retains the right talent. Designing the Careers Page with all the essential elements becomes necessary to make an extraordinary user experience. These include:
a. Company Mission/Vision and Purpose
The first important thing for prospective employees is what the organisation stands for. The Careers Page should reflect the purpose, mission/vision and values that represent a company. This helps qualify the candidate as they reflect on alignment with their own personal values.
b. Employee Value Proposition
You’ve done your employee and market research and identified the 3-4 strategic messages that set you apart as an employer. This is your Employee Value Proposition or EVP for short. Use your EVP to inspire all your people stories. It can even help you decide how much weight to give to different content. For example if your employees and prospective candidates highly value learning and development, you may wish to dedicate an entire page to highlight how you bring this to fruition.
c. Job Openings
Job openings are what prospective candidates search for. The Careers Page should contain the job openings by departments, locations and roles. It should be easy for candidates to navigate and search for relevant vacancies and be clear what skills are required to make a meaningful match.
d. Images and Videos
Images and videos of the work culture and employees speaking authentically about the employee experience is a must-do on the Careers Page. Showcasing the real employee experience is critical to attracting the right talent to want to join your organisation.
e. Employee testimonials
Sharing employee experiences from within the organisation, creates trust and relatability for the candidates. Lots of short, punchy and EVP alignment quotes from a diverse range of employees can make a powerful impact on engaging your visitors. If the employee experiences show a real and relatable working environment, candidates are more likely to have a positive outlook towards the company if it aligns with their values.
f. Mobile optimised
The majority of visitors to your Careers Pages are inclined to browse via mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly Careers Page that people can quickly scroll through on mobile devices can enhance the user experience. Make sure your navigation and content is mobile-friendly and easily accessible and readable.
g. Resume upload section
If a prospective candidate comes across a relevant job vacancy but then the job is filled, it is advisable that the Careers Page includes a section or email address where candidates can upload or submit their CVs or resume and become part of the talent pool. Recruiters can then draw on this pool for future role placements.
Frequently asked questions
What should a Careers Page have?
The Careers Page should include an overview of what the organisation does, along with vision, purpose, values, what teams employees can work in and typical roles, people videos (aligned with Employee Value Proposition), images of employees and work culture, list of benefits/perks, job openings, how to join a talent community and how to follow on social media.
What do job seekers want to see on a Careers Page?
Job seekers want to see mostly employee testimonials and how they work through images and videos. They want to see inside the organisation and get an authentic sense of the every-day workplace.
What are the potential benefits of having a well-designed Careers Page?
The benefits of having a well-designed Careers Page are:
1. It helps to convert candidates into job applicants
2. Reduces the cost and time of hiring
3. Enhances the Employer Brand perception
4. Attracts the right talent (and detracts the wrong talent)
With a menu of proven creative ideas, including costings, deliverables and live examples you will have everything you need to build a comprehensive budget to activate your Employer Brand.
