Does your careers site give candidates everything they need to decide if working for you is truly the right call?
If deep down, you know the answer to be “no” — if you’ve only had the time and resources to use your careers site as a place to list your open roles — you’re not alone. That’s why we’re sharing 7 traits of successful careers sites, based on what we’re seeing work for many of the 35,000 practitioners in the Rally community, as well as successful sites currently being used by top employers.
By checking all 7 of these boxes, you can create a careers site optimized to convert people who land on your homepage and drive them to apply to jobs, but also to read your content, learn who you are as a company, sign up for your talent newsletter and so much more.
Rally note: If you’re more of a visual learner, download the free Best-Practice Careers Site Design Template we created with Clinch to see where exactly to place the following information on the page for the best reaction from candidates.
1. Logo and navigation
This one might seem obvious, but placing your logo at the top of the page is important because it ensures consistency for candidates, as they’re likely coming from somewhere other than your careers site (i.e. a job ad or a Google search); once they see your logo they know they’re where they want to be. Anything you can possibly do to minimize confusion for candidates visiting your site will help with lowering your bounce rate.
A well-organized top navigation bar also makes it easy for candidates to find what they’re looking for on your site, and it helps with SEO by making your site more likely to appear in the first position on search engines like Google.
There’s flexibility in what you include in this navigation bar, but generally, you want to simplify as much as possible to make it easy for candidates to find whatever they’re looking for. Here’s an example of how PageUp structures their navigation bar on their careers site.
2. Bold image and job search bar
You’ve likely walked past a store and seen a large image plastered on its front window or sign. This image is often the first interaction you have with that store and sets the tone of the kind of experience you can expect. Header images on careers sites serve the same purpose.
The second candidates land on the page, they should be greeted with a bold image or video that impresses upon them the kind of employee experience they can expect from you. This means highlighting your people, initiatives or any other standout company features with original content — no stock photos or videos!
Paired with this header should be a job search bar, usually placed on top of the image, and a short headline above the search bar tied to your EVP (more on this below) prompting candidates to explore your site further. Examples of headlines are “Be Yourself, Here” or “Your Next Career Starts Here”.
While Flight Centre uses a button instead of a search bar on their header (the button brings candidates to a more comprehensive search page), the image and headline they use are good examples of representing the Flight Centre employee experience and prompting candidates to explore the site further.
3. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
A commitment to DEI is more expected by candidates at this point than a standout perk, which is why it’s worth dedicating a section of your page to it. The most important rule here is to show, not tell. Saying how diverse or equitable you are doesn’t mean nearly as much as proving it. You can do this by sharing:
- the work being done by employee resource groups for different communities in your workplace
- concrete goals you’ve set in place related to DEI (i.e. a certain level of representation among leadership) and the steps you’re taking to meet them
- social posts of employees involved in DEI activities (on their own time and at work)
Dell Technologies has publicly announced that by 2030, they want 50% of our global workforce and 40% of our global leaders to be those who identify as women. As part of their strategy to achieve this goal, they created their “Women at Dell” video series, as shown here. This is the perfect kind of content to share in your DEI section, as it proves their taking action to achieve their goal.
4. Company culture
From a practical standpoint, think of your company culture section as a filter; it helps candidates understand if you value the same things they do and, in doing so, helps make sure that you only attract people who really want to work for you — and who you want on your team.
A helpful culture section, then, is one that answers such questions as:
- Why do people decide to come work at your organization?
- What makes them stick around long-term?
- What sets your organization apart from hiring competitors?
Headlining this section needs to be your EVP statement, which takes your answers to the questions above and condenses them into a single-line statement.
An example of a culture section from Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, which covers such EVP pillars as growth opportunities within the company and how the company supports employees of different backgrounds and age groups.
5. Employee content
No one can sell your company better than your employees, but they need a platform to do that — and your careers site is perfect. While you can dedicate a section to your employees, you can also incorporate them into your other sections, such as your DEI and culture sections. This is actually a more powerful way to prove what you’re saying in these other sections, as candidates are much more likely to believe information when it’s coming from an actual employee than a faceless corporate entity.
With this in mind, share content featuring — and, ideally, created by — your employees that showcases as many perspectives as possible across different job roles, backgrounds, career paths and departments. These stories, which can be in the form of blogs, testimonials or something else, should also prove your EVP statement and supporting pillars. For example, if one of your pillars is “innovation”, a story about an engineer getting the necessary support to make a product breakthrough would be perfect to include.
An example of a piece of employee content worthy of sharing on your careers site. The video tells the story of how an employee found a new career at the APM, proving APM’s commitment to helping their employees grow.
6. Hiring process
Laying out your hiring process helps to solve the most common problem candidates cite for having a negative candidate experience, which is poor communication.
I’ve applied, when will they get back to me? Should I do anything to prepare for the interview? It’s been too long, they must not have picked me — I’ll try with another company.
By clearly outlining what they can expect at every stage of their candidate journey (i.e. apply, expect a response within 24 hours and so on), you help to prevent this kind of inner monologue among candidates. In doing so, you reduce the chances of them ghosting you, hastily choosing another offer and having a negative experience with your company (which they might feel compelled to share online!)
While more timelines could be a helpful addition, the Government of Ontario does a good job at setting expectations for candidates who apply to their jobs.
7. Talent network
It’s important to remember that not all candidates visiting your careers site are ready to apply there and now — some might be interested in the idea of working for you, just not right now.
For these candidates — and there are often many of them — having a talent network is perfect. By inviting them into your talent network with a clear call to action (i.e. “Join our Talent Community”) and sending them job openings, company updates, articles and other content over time, you can be among the first employers they think of when they’re ready to search for a new job.
Equinix asks candidates why they’re joining their talent network so that they can tailor the jobs and other content they send to be as helpful as possible.
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We hope that you can use the guidelines above to create a better, more employee-centered and conversion-optimized careers site.
For a deeper dive into the thinking behind each section, and where to place each section on the page to best engage candidates, download our free Best-Practice Careers Site Design Template.
