4 Best Practices for Career Sites: How to Optimize & Attract Top Talent  

A career site is an effective way to show off your employer brand, communicate company values, share employee stories, and post links to open jobs at your organization. These sites are used by large and small companies to build their brand and engage with top candidates.  

For candidates, career sites are an opportunity to do research during the application process and allow them to communicate with your hiring team about potential open roles. The best career sites accurately reflect your brand and offer candidates a great way to learn about your company and apply for open positions. Here are a few key elements that every career site should have and incorporate into an organization’s recruitment strategy.  

Employment Branding  

First, let’s get a clearer idea of what exactly employment branding is. Employer branding is a company’s ability to differentiate itself from competitors in its industry and promote its identity to potential candidates. Employment branding has never been more critical because the labor market is shifting like never before due to the Great Resignation and how individuals view work.  

This means that when candidates visit your career site, your company’s brand message should be clear.  

A clear brand message is the first step a candidate takes to determine whether or not they want to pursue the opportunity of working for your organization. Your employment branding statements should be delivered clearly with a genuine representation of your company culture. The copy and visuals should elicit an emotional connection with a strong call-to-action (e.g., “become a part of our team).  

One of the best ways to do this is to showcase current employees. Send out surveys that ask about the benefits and perks employees love and value about your organization. Then use these responses to create unique value propositions for candidates that make connections.  

Engaging Job Listings  

A career site should also have a clear section that features available job positions. Categorize your jobs by location and department to help candidates quickly search the positions that interest them the most. Categorizing your open positions also helps candidates better identify which roles they are a fit for and helps them to avoid candidate and job mismatch.  

When writing the job descriptions, your hiring teams should keep in mind that it acts as a marketing tool to sell your company, your team, and the opportunity to be a part of it.  

Mobile Optimization  

In 2021, there will be an estimated 7 billion mobile users worldwide. We now know that mobile-optimized sites have been – and continue to be – prioritized in Google search results. With this in mind, mobile optimization for your career site should also be a top priority. Recent data from Statista shows that in the first quarter of 2021, mobile devices generated 54.8 percent of global website traffic, a number that has hovered around the 50 percent mark since the beginning of 2017.  

Better career site optimization means more applicants. With a mobile-optimized site, you have a better chance at capturing the attention of candidates (particularly digital natives like Gen Z and millennials) who are searching on the go.  

Talent Community Platform  

When a candidate visits your career site, your organization may not have the exact position they’re looking for. Your hiring teams don’t want to miss out on losing a qualified candidate as a potential new employee. That’s why a Talent Community section on your career site is essential. Through this online solution, candidates can still submit their resumes without applying for a position. Your hiring team can then store the information until a job fit comes along and then reach out to that candidate to encourage them to apply.  

A Talent Community Platform should be used in conjunction with solutions designed to engage your talent community, like text messaging and A.I. webchats that can be used to keep communication from going dark.  

Enhance Your Recruitment Productivity with Loop Works 

Here at Loop Works, we partner with global organizations to identify, recruit and retain top talent through innovative recruitment marketing and relationship management solutions. If you’re looking to improve your employer branding and recruiting strategies, reach out to us to set up a demo.