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In a working world dominated by a shortage of skilled workers, companies must use a wide variety of channels to generate attention and draw attention to vacancies. The careers site in particular should not be forgotten: For interested candidates, it remains a central point of contact to find out about career opportunities in a company. The success of recruiting is therefore closely linked to a high-quality career site. It is not for nothing that it is also called the company's digital business car
In order not to waste this - often first - impression, it should represent the company as an attractive workplace and reflect the corporate culture. One thing in advance: The career page does not have to be particularly fancy or contain countless information about your company. Of course, you will be remembered with an individual design, but a simple presentation that scores points with good usability can be just as effective. The size of the company, the respective industry and the specific objective determine where exactly the journey should go. In addition, there are certain guidelines that can help any company design a promising career site.
Here's what you should keep in mind when setting up your career page
In addition to a clear structure, a simple and intuitive navigation is a basic requirement. The career section should be directly accessible via the main menu of your website - and not hidden in a sub-menu or even a footer menu. Cross-references from other sub-pages of your website that link to the careers page also make sense in a place that is appropriate in terms of content.
Pay attention to user-friendliness. When visitors arrive on your careers page, they should be able to find their way around immediately, because the rule of thumb is: if you don't find the information you want after three clicks, you will leave the page again. A search function can also help in terms of usability.
The corporate identity should be reflected in the stylistic design so that the career page is immediately recognisable as part of the company website. The same applies to the language of the job descriptions, which should be consistent and easy to understand in the overall context.
It is best to link the digital application process directly to the career site. It is advisable to provide a continuative link that enables a quick and convenient application process; for example, by uploading the profile data via LinkedIn (keyword: one-click application).
This must not be missing from the content
Before you start creating content, you should define your target group. If you want to address pupils, students, young professionals and experienced professionals, it might be a good idea to work with different subpages or microsites. This way you can tailor the content to the needs of each target group.
Information about your company should only be integrated with caution: The career page is not a place to stage the entire company. Instead, present a concrete description of the company's values and highlight possible benefits. Present the corporate culture and put the employer value proposition in the foreground of your presentation. Does your company focus on creative product design and does the team work exclusively in project groups with flexible working hours? Good, then describe that concisely on the career page - that way you will arouse the interest of candidates who would like to work that way.
In-depth insights into the company's everyday life round off the career page and give talents further reasons to consider your company as a place to work. Short videos can be used to introduce employees who describe their respective areas of responsibility and talk about the experience they have gained in your company. A virtual tour of the company or a series of pictures of representative employees creates a feeling of closeness and personality. In the overall picture, the company culture and the everyday life of the company should be presented authentically. This increases the chance that you will be perceived as a close and attractive employer.
The career page is the ideal place to list vacant positions. You should either list a short version of your job advertisements or link to an additional microsite. How should you design a job advertisement? I have described that in this article.
If there is additional relevant information regarding career opportunities in your company, this should be listed on the career page - for example, the necessary requirements for an apprenticeship or a dual study programme, the further training options and the promotion offers for employees. You should also provide information about the required application documents. If you want to score points directly with an optimised candidate journey, you can already give an indication here of what the further application process will look like and how long it will probably take.
Last but not least, you must not forget to provide the contact details of the responsible contact person. In case of questions or feedback, potential candidates need to know who to contact.
Search engine optimisation: These are the most important adjustments
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential component of the career site to ensure better findability. Because even the best career page is of little use if it disappears into the depths of the internet. SEO deals with an extensive list of factors that search engines use to display user-relevant search results. I would like to mention a few - the most basic - of them here. But don't forget: It is especially important that the site is technically clean, performs well and has unique content.
Think "mobile first"
Nowadays, many applicants search for jobs on their smartphone or tablet. Therefore, you should make sure that the career site is optimised for mobile use. Not only design decisions such as text or image sizes play a decisive role, but also the loading times for files. Furthermore, the rule of thumb is: the smaller the screen, the shorter the attention span. Therefore, job advertisements and career pages should be kept entertaining and informative, especially in the mobile version.
Optimise loading times
The time it takes for your career page to fully load and be displayed is an important ranking factor. Because: Google only wants the best for its users. If the content is only fully displayed after more than three seconds, the page is loading too slowly; the search engine punishes this by moving the page down a few ranks. The measures that can be used to optimise loading times are many and varied. This guide will give you a good overview.
Use the right keywords
Before Google displays a particular page as the result of a search query, it checks whether the page actually offers an answer to the searcher's question. One of the ways Google does this is by searching the pages for keywords. Before setting up a career page, a keyword search should be carried out with the help of online tools such as this one. The URL and the meta description, which appears as preview text in the Google search, should also contain the focused keyword.
Set tags and links
As already mentioned, you should pay attention to a clear and well-structured page layout. On the technical side, this means using HTML and meta tags. They allow Google to distinguish between different types of content and recognise the structure and prioritisation of the texts. Internal contextual links between the individual pages are also particularly relevant for the career page.
Increase dwell time
Another factor that Google uses to measure the relevance of a page for its users is the length of time that previous users stay on the page. The longer they stay on your career page to examine your content, the more positive the effect on your ranking. Therefore, meaningful texts are of primary importance, which are complemented by appealing images. But you can also score points with videos. On the one hand, moving images make it easier to convey emotions, and on the other hand, videos invite users to stay longer on the page.
Analyse the performance
Various web analytics tools help you to take a closer look at the performance of your career site. Popular programmes include Matomo and Google Analytics. They provide you with information about tracked visitors, their usage behaviour and length of stay.
Above all, you should keep an eye on whether your career site is meeting your goals. On the one hand, this can of course be the applications of candidates for vacant positions - which in marketing jargon is equivalent to a conversion. But lead generation can also be helpful: Namely, when potentially interested people sign up for your career newsletter and receive regular updates of your job offers. But even one impression, i.e. the mere visit to your career page, can lead to your company being perceived as an attractive employer - and should therefore not be underestimated.
In the case of the career page, the rule also applies: optimisation is the key. So if you are dissatisfied with the performance and the results achieved, adapt the page further. Replace texts and content or perhaps also change the structure if a different arrangement seems more purposeful. In addition, the career page should always be supplemented with current content such as new vacancies.
For more tips you can apply to a successful career site, please read the following article by our colleagues from alphacoders: "Why your job description is doomed".
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