For years now, we’ve been saying companies need to rethink and revamp their approach to career sites. It wasn’t always the case that these recruiting assets were so high on the priority list, but things (especially on the candidate side of the equation) have changed drastically in a short period of time.
Now, career sites are perhaps the most crucial stop on the candidate journey. And those employers that have taken the time to improve theirs are starting to reap the benefits from mobile recruiting, SEO, employer branding, candidate experience, and more.
If a new career site has been on the horizon for you, then hopefully you were able to make it to our webinar last week. The virtual event was hosted by our SVP of Marketing, Ivan Casanova. It was entitled, “Career Site Transformation Planning.” Over the course of about one hour, we shared our framework for what makes an exceptional career site.
Career Site Transformation Planning
Since we didn’t have time to answer all of the questions at the end of the webinar, we figured we’d take the time to do so now.
1. Why should I care about landing pages for recruiting?
The benefits of recruiting landing pages are multifaceted.
First, the main reason to create a landing page is to capture the interest of a specific set of job seekers–ones looking for only trucking jobs or IT jobs or entry-level jobs. The idea is that when you present them with exactly the information they need, they’re more likely to decide to apply.
This also happens to benefit your site from a search engine optimization, or SEO, standpoint. More pages dedicated to specific job categories are better than one blanket career site homepage tailored to no one in particular. These pages will take up more search engine results page “real estate” and drive more candidates to your site.
2. How can my career site beat job boards in SEO?
Yes, large job boards like Indeed have a ton of SEO power. But the truth is search engines like Google are trying very hard to give searchers the result they’re looking for–without having to stop off at a third-party site to get there.
So when a job seeker is looking specifically for your jobs, typing something into the search bar like “xyz company marketing jobs,” if your site is properly optimized for search it should, over time, rise above the job boards on the search engine results page.
3. How can I mobile optimize job applications?
Mobile optimization is vital in today’s smartphone era. Too many employers, though, aren’t worried about it. They think their out-of-the-box mobile ATS experience is good enough, even though that sometimes means job seekers can’t even submit their resume.
Mobile optimizing your job applications, or apply flow, can be done in three main ways. First, you could replace your ATS with a mobile-friendly one (that’s expensive and stressful). Second, you could ask your current ATS provider when mobile optimized apply flows will become available, and wait (and wait and wait and wait). Or third, you could leverage a company like Jibe to integrate with your current ATS vendor, and consumerize your mobile experience.
4. How do I get budget for employer branding initiatives?
As is the case with getting budget for any new initiative, you’re going to need to show value. We suggest getting budget for employer branding by building a business case. You could do this by taking advantage of existing industry research, using the benefits of employer branding on key metrics like cost per hire or time to hire as your justification. You could also experiment with your own programs, measure the impact, and then request budget based on that.
5. How do I set up Google Analytics on my career site?
Most companies will already have Google Analytics set up for their career site, because their marketing department likely has it set up for the overall site in general. We suggest just walking down the hall and requesting access. If for some reason you don’t have Google Analytics set up, here’s a walkthrough.
6. What are some ways to use a talent network for recruitment marketing?
We’ve seen companies use their talent network in unique ways. Some send out a weekly careers or employer branding newsletter, so candidates can stay up to date on and interested in what’s happening at the company. In this case, the quality of content is key. Others use talent networks for identifying groups of candidates, in order to reach out to them about a particular job.
7. How important is employer branding content on my career site?
We predict content will be one of the primary focus points for recruiting teams in 2017. That said, having a good recruiting content strategy is easier said than done. Even marketing teams, whose job it is to create content, have trouble consistently creating good content. Since this is a complex topic to get into right here, we’ll defer to a recent post on the Jibe blog from someone at HubSpot.
If you’ve got any other questions, shoot us a message on Twitter @jibe!
Does your career site help you stand out from the crowd? Our new eBook, Career Site Transformation Planning, covers everything you need to attract and convert candidates:
The post You Asked, We Answered: 7 Questions Recruiters Have About Career Sites appeared first on Jibe.