In today’s world, companies use a variety of different methods and platforms to attract applicants to join their team. But there is one platform that is more prevalent than all others and that is the company career site. Research indicates that roughly 77% of all job applicants will look at a company career page, whether that is to apply for a role, or simply as research before deciding to apply or attending an interview. Despite this, very few firms invest much in their corporate career page and this greatly harms candidate experience.

Keep it simple

If you want to improve candidate experience and engagement, the first thing that needs to be done is to simplify the design of most career pages. I have seen so many websites where it is so easy to get lost. The design needs to user friendly and easy to navigate, with everything clearly laid out with simple easy to understand language and relevant information. At a quick glance, any potential job applicant should be able to understand where to find the available jobs, what the company culture is like and why they should want to work for the firm. That is pretty much it.

Stop speaking at the Audience

The tone of the language used must also change. Nearly every career site talks at the potential applicant, rather than trying to engage the applicant. I guarantee that 99.9% of your potential job applicants do not care that in 1935 you invented something new or that in 1962 there was a change in ownership, or want a long list of all 353 different products you sell. They want to know what job they could do, why doing that job will benefit them and what their colleagues and environment would be like. There is no need for a company brochure outlining every single aspect of the organisation because the truth is your own employees don’t care what some of the other teams are doing. So, your potential applicants definitely don’t care. Instead, focus on providing employees with an engaging purpose and reason for them to want to join that benefits them.

Show real employee journeys

One of the easiest ways to show a real purpose and reason is to showcase real employee journeys within the organisation. Every company website pretty much says the same thing, we offer learning and development opportunities, flexible working, embrace diversity and inclusion, donate to charities, and have a competitive benefits package. There is practically no differentiation, so unless you happen to be Google, or one of the other handful of companies with such a strong brand, the truth is most people are only applying because you have a job and they need one. To create real engagement and excitement, you should showcase real authentic journeys within your organisation.

If someone is applying for a job in a team, they should be able to see a video or blog article from one of your employees in that team speaking about all of the cool stuff they have worked on, the new things they have got to learn and why working in the team is awesome. It should be specific and authentic and thus relatable to potential applicants. Avoid generic, corporate nonsense like “here at xxx we try to deliver value to our customers”. I’m sure your business does and probably does it well, but that means nothing to a potential applicant as it does not tell them how it advances their career by joining you.

Be more specific than “Experienced Hires”

Finally, it’s important to showcase relevant content to the correct persona of the likely job applicant. Most organisations put all non-campus hiring under an “Experienced hire” banner. They then frame opportunities in the exact same way to all this population. Someone with 2 years’ experience and someone with 25 years’ experience are going to be looking for very different things from their career with your company. So, job levels and skill sets should be tied into a typical persona for the type of person who will end up performing that role. For example, the communication to the junior person would highlight real opportunities and examples of learning and development, career growth and mentorship within their area of focus. The communication to the more senior person would be around having a real impact, delivering outcomes, meaningful change and bringing through the next generation of leaders. By framing opportunity in this way you make the opportunity more attractive and meaningful, which creates a higher level of engagement.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out my international bestselling books available globally on all Amazon sites and Kindle via the following:

You can also connect with me on social media for more content and updates by following the links here:

And don’t forget to visit my website at LeeNallalingham.com for hundreds of free articles like this one. Thanks for your support!

Advertisement