Careers sites are not all about jobs

What makes a successful careers site? Plethora of corporate information, attractive role descriptions and of course a powerful job search engine? Well, these were what I believed to be the key assets of careers sections before I boarded on my last project.

I began by carrying out some preliminary research to arm myself on the matter. I was principally looking at best practice in job search and application processes. These actually turned out to be out of the required scope.

Priorities weren’t so much focused on jobs search processes; the career website wanted to find out how to evolve the status of their site visitors from “simple users” to “potential candidates”. And suddenly a whole new world appeared to me. I realised that careers sections shouldn’t be about information bombardment and endless application processes. Focus shouldn’t be set on the jobs but rather on the potential candidates. Currently, many careers sites seem to have somehow neglected this aspect.

Usability is often present in a website’s lifecycle but doesn’t always guarantee a good customer experience (which a site achieves by living up to the users expectations- and beyond). Most of the careers sites out there are possibly decently usable, however only a few are designed smartly enough to accommodate a prospect’s needs.

More than just providing a pleasurable customer experience, the sites should deliver a real “candidate experience”. From a candidate perspective, this means guidance to access the right information in order to best inform decisions. From a brand point of view, this involves seducing the applicants with the company’s values and work style in an engaging and thrilling way.

In other words, successful careers sites aim at providing the right information to the right person in the right way. Good usability ensures applicants easily find jobs; good customer experience ensures they find the right ones.

This post was originally posted by Xavier Klingenfus