The figures on online behavior prove that it is essential for companies to consider a strategy for presenting their own company on the Internet and thus ensure a strong brand presence and sufficient visibility on the Internet. When it comes to filling vacancies, a well-thought-out, professionally set up and networked careers page becomes the focus of potential candidates.
In this article, we look at what makes a strong online presence and what companies need to pay attention to when creating their careers page in order to put their employer brand in the spotlight, strengthen their brand awareness and create a positive candidate experience for their potential applicants.
Online presence: sharpen your company profile on the WordWideWeb
A well-designed online presence increases both the visibility and awareness of the company. According to a study, around 70% of job seekers start their search on Google and assume that they will be shown relevant companies and interesting vacancies in the search results.[2]
An optimized and strategically planned online presence enables companies to control the information that can be found about them on the internet. This gives them the opportunity to provide potential customers with trustworthy, credible and truthful content about themselves and their offers.
A modern, data-driven strategy is needed to offer website visitors a personalized experience and provide them with relevant product recommendations. This insight is underlined by a survey of customers, where 52% of participants confirmed that they feel best understood when they receive personalized product recommendations.[3] This also applies to job seekers, who also prefer personalized communication.[2]
The fact is that the internet has changed the way we communicate, shop and search for relevant information. In order to remain competitive, companies need to adapt to these changes and give their online presence the necessary polish. This is especially true for companies’ careers pages. It serves as the linchpin in the search for suitable talent on the Internet, because job seekers want to know why they should apply for your company. Companies with an informative careers page that provides potential applicants with relevant information are more likely to motivate them to apply.
The career page as a window into your company
According to Statista, around a third of 16 to 34-year-olds look for a suitable job online, while 19% of 35 to 45-year-olds still search for jobs online.[4] Companies can attract the interest of these potential candidates with a strong online presence, a user-friendly career site and a coordinated candidate journey. A major advantage of a carefully planned and executed career site is that it centralizes recruiting efforts. Job ads published via job boards are usually not directly linked to the company’s HR platform. This means recruiters receive a flood of responses via email that they have to manually enter into the system. With an optimized career site, companies can streamline the process[5], streamlining every step of the application process, from posting job openings to reviewing applications received to organizing job interviews. Your career website offers you the possibility of a comprehensive candidate journey, better interaction and a positive candidate experience – take advantage of this opportunity.
Bring your corporate culture to the forefront
With your careers page, you can skillfully bring your corporate culture into focus. Attract talent with crisp job descriptions and show what your company is all about.[5] Illustrate your corporate culture, values and mission, allowing potential applicants to get an idea of your employer brand and cultural fit.
Emphasize the benefits of working for your company. Put them in the spotlight: room for growth, training and development opportunities, the appreciation you show your employees, the offer of a safe and inclusive working environment and much more. The more comprehensively and transparently you present your company, the easier it is for potential candidates to imagine what it would be like to work for your company[5]. Take advantage of this and set yourself apart from the competition with this company presentation and a clear job description. Use testimonials from your employees and so-called user-generated content (or employee-generated content). This is content that focuses on the company’s employees, as it is the employees who prepare this content. This can be blog articles, videos or other interactive content that is published on various channels. For example, the careers page, social networks or by sending out newsletters that help potential candidates to get an idea of your company.
“From Hi to Apply” – A candidate experience that is fun
Appeal to a wide range of different talents by presenting a comprehensive collection of different career options and organize your job offers by department, location or field of activity. This makes it easier for your potential applicants to find suitable vacancies.
Job recommendations on the careers page make it easier for visitors to find relevant jobs. This is done on the basis of the website behavior of the respective user, so job recommendations are compiled individually and relevant vacancies are displayed. This supports a smooth candidate journey, simplifies the application process and increases the chance that potential candidates will apply and that you will attract suitable talent for your company.
Explain the application process clearly and make it transparent. Structure it chronologically – start with the receipt of the application documents and end with a possible hire. Provide insights into topics such as the interview process, assessment tests, the selection process and the feedback procedures used.
Visibility, online presence and the possibilities of SEO
See your career website as the centerpiece of your talent acquisition strategy and a key component of your candidate journey. It enables you to give your potential employees an initial insight into your company. To ensure that as many talents as possible find you or find your company in the sheer endless expanse of the Internet, there are a number of things to consider for the visibility and optimization of your career site.
Use meaningful keywords for all your headings to make your careers page easier to find on the internet. Remember to subdivide your texts using subheadings (H2, H3, etc.) to improve readability – your website visitors will thank you for it. Use the option of providing links with descriptive anchor texts to link to other pages. When using images, set relevant keywords for the file names to support SEO optimization.
Maintain the content of your career page. This means: keep job offers, events and news up to date and regularly check whether all links and information are still correct. In this way, you and your company will create a professional first impression with your careers page and shine with a strong online presence.
Numbers and data as the key to a successful career site
From a technical point of view, career sites come in many different variants, gradations and options. The integrated career site can probably be regarded as the pièce de résistance. This is a pioneering tool in recruiting and facilitates real-time communication and data exchange between the various elements in recruiting. This allows you to make informed decisions, adapt flexibly and continuously improve the recruiting process with the help of the collected data-based insights. Job seekers leave valuable data for your company with every visit to your website. Use this data, analyze it and use the data-driven insights to adapt your recruiting strategy, optimize your career site and improve the candidate journey for your potential applicants.
The focus on analyzing data gives companies a necessary, strategic advantage over the competition in the search for suitable talent.
Conclusion
The current challenges for recruiters, talent acquisition and HR managers are not predicted to change any time soon.[5] A strong online presence and a successful career site are important recruiting strategies to meet these challenges. This allows you to connect with potential talent, create a great candidate journey and positive candidate experience, stand out from the crowd and save recruitment costs.
Data-driven insights are key to the effective use of a successful career site. It is important that Talent Acquisition and HR managers understand what content is of interest to visitors to your career site and what steps potential candidates take before submitting an application. This allows recruiters to make informed decisions about which steps of the candidate journey need to be adapted in order to attract the right talent. Ultimately, this contributes to the achievement of company-specific recruiting goals.
Would you like to find out what undiscovered potential lies dormant in your career site? Our experienced team will be happy to advise you on how to make your career site the flagship of your recruiting strategy and stay one step ahead of the competition.
Sources
[1] Morgan, B. 2023. (26. Juni 2023). 100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2023/06/26/100-customer-experience-stats-for-2023/
[2] Recruiting. How a Career Site Can Improve Your Candidate Experience. https://www.recruiting.com/blog/how-a-career-site-can-improve-your-candidate-experience/
[3] Redpoint Global. 2022. (9. Feb. 2022). 74 Percent of Consumers Believe Brand Loyalty is About Feeling Understood and Valued – Not Discounts and Loyalty Perks | Redpoint Global. https://www.redpointglobal.com/press-releases/74-percent-of-consumers-believe-brand-loyalty-is-about-feeling-understood-and-valued-not-discounts-and-loyalty-perks/
[4] Statista. 2022. Share of people in selected European countries searching and applying for jobs online 2019, by age group. Zuletzt zugegriffen am 6. November 2023 über https://www.statista.com/statistics/1244216/europe-internet-users-searching-jobs-application/
[5] Orr, K. 2022. (2. Mai 2022). Why You Need To Rethink Your Website’s Career Page. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2022/05/02/why-you-need-to-rethink-your-websites-career-page/
