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Need a Better Talent Acquisition Strategy? Try Updating Your Website

If your talent acquisition strategy isn’t producing the results you want, you should try evaluating and updating your website. This may not be the first place you’d think to check when struggling to recruit quality employees, but a stale website or poorly designed careers page could be the leak you didn’t know you had in your marketing recruitment funnel.

Digital marketing strategies are incredibly effective at recruiting job candidates, but if the website you’re leading them to is confusing or cumbersome to use, your candidates may give up and respond to postings elsewhere.

The reality is that we’re now operating in a candidate’s job market. With so many open positions to fill, qualified candidates are in demand, and as such, they have the upper hand. Businesses that apply marketing tactics to differentiate from the competition will ultimately be more attractive to job seekers and ultimately come out on top.

We’d love to help you ensure that your website is appealing and useful to job candidates interested in working for you. In this post, we offer ideas to help you evaluate and improve your website—specifically your careers page—that will help optimize your marketing recruitment strategy and find the best people for your team.

Regularly Test the UX/UI of Your Careers Page

More and more people are using smartphones and tablets to research topics because when are we ever without a smartphone in hand? For this reason, it is paramount that your website is responsive and mobile-friendly.

User experience and user interface design should be top of mind for every business owner, but don’t neglect to think this through from the position of the job seeker as well as the potential customer. If your employment page is clunky, junky, or otherwise hard to navigate, this could be a big reason why you’re missing out on top talent.

Oftentimes, a company’s employment page will have various third-party integrations to facilitate candidates applying online. So it’s helpful to regularly walk through every step in your website’s online application process to be sure you’ve created a user-friendly experience for job applicants.

Make sure that your website looks great and functions as expected on every size screen. Each click should lead to the expected next step and the load time should be quick and efficient. The content should be organized in a way that is intuitive to the job seeker, and this isn’t always going to line up with your organizational structure.

If you’re not sure whether or not your careers page has a great user experience, consider interviewing candidates that end the process prematurely. They may be willing to offer candid feedback that can inform any UX/UI adjustments you could make to improve the process.

It should probably go without saying, but we’ll say it just in case: you should be testing your entire website’s UI/UX on a regular basis. If you’re not, we would be very happy to help you out. Just remember that usability applies to both of your audiences: customers and candidates alike.

2. Rethink and Revamp Your Content

If you’re hiring process seems sluggish, take a look at your website content. In what ways are you communicating with job seekers on your career pages? Make an effort to word things in a creative way to engage candidates and draw them into your brand story, just as you would communicate with your potential customers.

Structurally, your content organization should follow a strategic approach. For example, giving each job listing its own unique URL allows you to optimize that page for search engines. Using specific keywords relative to the job, you can gain more organic traffic from job seekers searching for open positions online.

The standard job listing typically follows a similar format: a brief description of the company and position, expected duties, and qualifications the applicant must have in order to be eligible for consideration. But what if you could get creative with the job descriptions? Write these using the brand voice of your company and use this as an opportunity to let your brand personality come across in a meaningful way.

If you have a way for interested candidates to submit an application online, be intentional with the content on your “thank you” page. After the user clicks “submit,” the next page they see should include content to further describe important details about your organization to keep the applicant engaged. Maybe you recommend they follow your social media accounts or include a brand video specifically created for job candidates.

A Multi-Channel Approach to Recruitment Marketing Will Reach More Candidates

Your website’s career page is extremely important, but it’s not going to be enough to find the best fit for your open positions. Make sure that your website is set up for interactivity between channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and use those tools to reach a wider audience.

If you’re a small business owner, HR manager, or business leader looking for fresh ideas to recruit new employees, please send us a message today! We would love to help you make sure your website is working to enhance your hiring efforts and offer other ideas for leveraging digital marketing for employee recruitment.

In the meantime, check out these related posts that we believe will help you capture the best talent:

• UX/UI 101: How User Experience Strategy Helps Improve Conversions
• 3.8 Billion Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Mobile-First Redesign
• Six Questions to Help You Evaluate Your Website

We look forward to hearing from you!