What does your careers site say about your employer brand?

To attract top talent in a competitive market, organisationsorganizations need a tech-optimisedoptimized application process that focuses on the candidate experience. That’s where career sites do the heavy lifting.

Today’s candidates can often pick and choose the organisationsorganizations they apply to, and jobseekers expect a consumer-grade experience. That means organisationsorganizations need a streamlined, tech-optimisedoptimized application process. Here’s how organisationsorganizations can create a great applicant experience which brings their employer brand to life through a thoughtfully-designed careers site.

Keeping pace with change

Technological disruption has far-reaching impacts for all industries. Job applicants are busy and spoilt for choice. They have expectations of a tech-aligned, mobile-optimisedoptimized job search experience – applying with the click of a few buttons, not completing reams of application forms. Competitors are using new and emerging technologies enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the user experience is now at the centre of attracting top talent. The technological overhaul of the HR world is forcing organisationsorganizations to re-think the way they approach recruitment and employer branding to attract candidates – otherwise, they run the risk of losing top talent to competitors.

In addition to technological changes, we’re seeing a shift in the composition of the workforce. There are now four generations of people in the workforce, and millennials make up more than one-third (35%) of this cohort. Millennials expect a tech-optimisedoptimized recruitment experience that focuses on culture and corporate social responsibility, which means organisationsorganizations should consider how they can engage candidates through a mobile-optimisedoptimized recruitment experience that highlights their employer brand.

What makes a good employer brand?

Personal and professional come together: employees expect alignment between personal values and their employer’s values

• Political, environmental and social corporate responsibility
• Holistic factors including employee benefits, flexibility, legacy and corporate reputation

OrganisationsOrganizations that are looking to attract top talent are investing in their employer brand. Each organisationorganization has its own unique employer brand, and it’s up to HR and hiring teams to clearly articulate this.

So what goes into an attractive employer brand?

• Both the personal and the professional are part of the employer brand. Your careers site should bring jobseekers on a personal and social journey.
• Attracting candidates is as much about political, environmental, and social corporate responsibility as it is about salaries and legacy. People have come to expect an alignment between their personal values and those of their employer.
• Attracting and retaining the best talent is no longer just about remuneration. It’s about a holistic set of factors that include:
  • An employer’s brand
  • Employee benefits
  • Flexibility
  • Legacy
  • Reputation

It’s clear that a strong sense of ethics and company culture is more than a nice-to-have for today’s employees. In fact, 90% of professionals have researched the culture of a company before accepting a role, which is why it’s so important to take a strong stance in your organisationorganization’s beliefs. Applicants will often assess an organisationorganization’s overall brand, rather than simply the position description, to see if they are a good cultural fit.

What candidates expect

Your careers site is often the first point of contact an applicant has with your organisationorganization. Does this site showcase what makes it a great place to work? The modern candidate expects:

• social integration
• proactive targeting
• personalisedpersonalized touchpoints

An organisationorganization’s social media presence and mobile connectivity both have an impact on the success of its recruitment efforts. The ease of use could be the deciding factor in whether an organisationorganization can successfully recruit high-value talent. Applicants are looking for a mobile-optimisedoptimized application process: if your careers site doesn’t offer this, it says that your organisationorganization is not committed to delivering a great employee experience. High-value time-poor candidates will apply elsewhere.

Create a thoughtful career site experience

The design, look and feel of your careers site is important: Ask yourself:

• Does your career site match the branding and feel of your organisationorganization‘s site?  
• Is the environment easy to navigate – can users easily search, save, and share content?
• Are generic photos used in borders and postings, or are you leveraging branded images?
• Are you using quotes and testimonials from employees to communicate positive messaging?

Leverage social media

Social media and mobile devices have reinvented the expectations of an organisationorganization‘s online presence and can set the tone for an engaging employer-employee relationship.

• 86% of job applicants are using social media for their job searches
• 84% of organisationsorganizations are now using social media for recruiting
• Only 17% of companies have a clearly defined strategy to strengthen their employer brand using social networks

Eighty-six percent of all job applicants are using social media for their job searches. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have all become valuable recruitment channels. Actively participating in the platforms prospective candidates are already using is one of the best ways for employers to speak to this cohort of potential talent. Eighty-four percent of organisationsorganizations now use social media for recruiting, but only 17% of companies have a clearly-defined strategy to strengthen their employer brand using social networks.

Does your organisationorganization have a social media strategy in place to attract prospective candidates? If not, consider adopting an approach that incorporates the following:

• Share your organisationorganization‘s employer brand on social networks with images that showcase your unique culture
• Constant, regular posting to keep your audience engaged and your organisationorganization top of mind for jobseekers
• A careers site which allows for direct uploading from social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Google Drive to pre-fill applications. This makes the recruitment process faster and easier for the applicant, especially if they’re applying on a mobile device.  

Mobile optimisationoptimization

The modern candidate expects to be able to search, apply for and accept a position on a mobile device. When you consider that 86% of all active job searches begin with smartphones, it becomes imperative for a successful careers site to be mobile optimisedoptimized. The amount of applications completed on mobile devices is also increasing: PageUp research shows that 19% of job applications were submitted via a mobile device in the last year. That’s up from 15% at the end of 2017, and notably higher than the external benchmark of 16%.

As the number of applications submitted via mobile devices increases, candidates expect to apply for jobs quickly and easily from their mobile devices with pre-filled information and succinct application forms. PageUp research has found there is a correlation between abandoned job applications and applications made on a mobile device. As the application form lengthens, the number of incomplete applications via mobile devices increases. That’s because lengthy job applications become tedious on these devices, and this lengthy time to apply leads prospective candidates to give up without completing the application.

Incorporate real-life insights

To effectively communicate your unique employer brand through your careers site, incorporate real-life insights that show what it’s like to work at your organisationorganization. ‘A day in the life’ testimonials that follow an employee’s day-to-day activities work well to provide an authentic look at an organisationorganization’s internal culture. Some organisationsorganizations go one step further and give jobseekers a micro-level insight into an employee’s career journey. For example, on Deloitte’s career page you can see an interactive infographic timeline of certain employee’s career journeys with the organisationorganization.

Incorporating real people into your career site branding can set realistic expectations of what it’s like to work at your organisationorganization. Unfulfilled employer brand expectations are a major cause of early-stage staff turnover: 22% of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days of employment, and 33% of new hires look for a job within their first six months. Engaging job applicants from the outset with a real-life look at your organisationorganization can dispel any misleading employer brand expectations before their first day.

Communicating your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

What makes an attractive EVP?

• Career progression and learning opportunities
• Social, economic and environmental corporate responsibility
• Strong internal culture
• Ethics (75% of employees trust their employer to do what is right. Only 57% of employees trust their employer to do what is right, and only 47% trust media to do what is right).

Communicating your organisationorganization’s unique EVP is a crucial part of an effective careers site. But what makes for an attractive EVP? What we’re seeing from PageUp customers is that an attractive EVP doesn’t primarily focus on pay scale or benefits.

Instead, an attractive EVP focuses on:

• Career progression
• Learning and development opportunities
• An organisationorganization’s social, economic and environmental corporate responsibility

This focus on corporate ethics is in line with wider cultural and political shifts. What employees expect from their employers is changing: according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, people have shifted their trust to the relationships within their control, which includes their employers. Globally, 75% of people trust “my employer” to do what is right, which is significantly more than NGOs (57%), business (56%) and media (47%). This means hiring teams not only have to communicate the things that make their organisationorganization a great place to work: they also have to communicate the things that make their organisationorganization a place applicants would be proud to work.

Map the recruitment journey

Mapping the recruitment journey from the point of application through to the interview, selection and onboarding process sets expectations for employees around timelines, next steps and future action items. In high-volume recruiting, mapping the recruitment journey sets expectations and keeps applicants informed at-scale. This provides candidates with a more transparent recruitment experience and reduces the administrative enquiries that hiring teams would otherwise spend time and resources responding to.

Attract talent all year-round

In today’s competitive recruitment landscape, it’s not enough to have a careers site that just communicates your brand. Successful organisationsorganizations will attract candidates with a career’s site that constantly connects with, captures and engages potential candidates at every stage of the recruitment process – not just when it’s time to fill a role. Many industries – particularly those in healthcare, retail, higher education and hospitality – are struggling to find quality, relevant candidates to fill open positions. When you do find those star candidates, there’s increasing competition for these people.

In order to beat your competition, you need to connect with people before they are actively looking for roles and build a relationship with them. This can be done through expression of interest forms that allow you to connect with talent year-round – not just when a specific role is available. Capturing the details of people who are engaged in the role and have the experience you’re looking for means you’ll have a warm, engaged talent pool of candidates to draw from when the time is right.

Careers sites are considered a reflection of an organisationorganization’s values and culture. Extending your brand through a thoughtful career site experience is key to attracting top talent. With recruitment increasingly focused on the candidate experience, the healthcare organisationsorganizations that can create a hiring journey that’s seamless, authentic and mobile-optimisedoptimized will be the ones that find and retain the best people.

Careers sites that recruit for you

Our platform’s careers site builder and robust admin features allow you to post jobs online and reach top talent across the globe in a few short clicks. An easy-to-use CMS means that no html or CSS skills are needed to deliver professional career pages that showcase your company and culture. Don’t just take our word for it – you can request a demo today to see a PageUp Recruitment Marketing careers site in action.