New year, same Aflies: Career Page Reviews.
Some things are fine the way they are and don’t need changing, thank you very much :)
For our new readers, The Alfies is our monthly discourse on the role of the Careers page. Every month, we and a guest judge critique three publicly available careers pages. Using our industry crowdsourced criteria, which you can access for free here, we look at and score the various elements that combine to make a winning careers page.
Purpose of a Careers Page
But before we dissect this month’s winner, let’s remind ourselves of the purpose of a careers page.
It’s really quite simple, it’s to convert visitors to applicants; either now or in the future. This is done by creating a clear and enticing picture of your organisation, by making it easy for visitors to find the information they want, by making it easy to apply, and maybe by telling visitors something they didn’t know. We all like being surprised after all.
Best Looking Careers Page in January 2021
So this month we had three of our local technology company heavyweights as our “competitors” and our winner is SEEK.
It’s impossible to live in Australia and not know of SEEK. They’ve become a household name over the last decade or so and are one of our original homegrown unicorns.
We were interested in doing this one because traditionally big brands don’t have trouble attracting people. Their challenges usually lie further down the funnel with issues such as processing high application volumes, providing timely feedback to candidates, managing overly onerous processes, and so on.
Reviewing Each Careers Pages
So out three judges were all rather surprised that SEEK was the winner, and by a fairly healthy margin.
Our guest judge for January was Stefan Welack, Talent Excellence Partner from Xplor. Our own Pavi Iyer and Simon rounded out the panel.
How the Organisation Sells & Describes Itself
Onto the judging then, and our first category looks at how the organisation sells and describes itself. It’s a chance to inspire potential applicants with a vision or mission.
Messages from founders and leaders are a great avenue for this, they can transform a potentially faceless business into a more human and connected one (the same goes for great customer stories). SEEK does this really well with a short, well-produced video with Andrew Bassatt talking about the origins and history of the business. There’s a simple timeline and some high-level numbers to help communicate the scale of the business.
These elements do a good job of demonstrating SEEK’s rich history whilst also giving a nod to future possibilities. Of the three brands we looked at, SEEK scored highest in this category, scoring a whopping 55 out of a possible 60.
Employer Brand
Next up we look at the Employer brand, in other words how are the company’s values described? Is there a congruence with a consumer brand at all? Are diversion and inclusion discussed? These are important issues in today’s hyper-competitive hiring market for many reasons. Arguably the most important being the amount of choice for high-value talent.
One of SEEK’s beliefs is “Doing the right amount of thinking upfront”, taglines run the risk of being mere lip-service, but SEEK have clearly done plenty of upfront thinking when it comes to their Employer brand. We particularly liked the attention SEEK paid to describe their Tech culture. All three organisations scored strongly in this category. However, despite being slightly outpointed, SEEK still scored a respectable 62 out of a possible 75.
We also considered how EVP’s are communicated. We ask questions such as are the benefits clearly described? Are they easy to find? Are there any third-party validations? Glassdoor reviews/Awards? Is career progression described? Are salaries communicated?
In other words, outside of the shiny brand platitudes, how does an organisation demonstrate that it actually cares about its people? The judges agreed that SEEK does a great job of articulating its employee benefits and that they were easy to find. The missed opportunities however are in demonstrating how career progression happens and how salaries or salary bands are communicated. Companies get more hierarchical the bigger they get, which makes potential candidates wonder about career progression and salaries.
Again, all 3 brands struggled with some of these elements but SEEK scored the highest with 30 out of a possible 75 points.
Careers Page Functionality
Finally, we looked at functionality. In other words, how easy is it for candidates to access the information they need? How onerous is finding and applying for a role?
Can someone apply with a LinkedIn profile or do they have to create a profile and enter details that are already in their resume?
Can people with physical impairments apply for a role? And our simple question is, “if I was heading home, on a busy tram, could I apply easily on my mobile?”
Scoring The Careers Pages
As with all the categories, the high and low scoring elements were relatively consistent across the three competitors. We’d like to have seen a general application option or the ability to sign up for a careers newsletter. After all, any way that potential candidates can engage with your brand is a good thing. The application process itself is an interesting point. Applying with a LinkedIn profile as opposed to a resume is becoming more popular.
But giving candidates options has to be the best thing. SEEK does this with its drag and drop resume option, a SEEK Profile option, and its SmartProfile option (they’re a SmartRecruiters user). There’s also a cover letter generator, labelled “Message to Hiring Manager – Let the company know about your interest working there” which is a nice touch.
All three brands run the risk of their pages being a little clunky, requiring a bit of digging in order to find the information you’d need. That’s the challenge of carrying a lot of information on your site. However, SEEK again scored highest with a 74.5 out of a possible 120 points.
Congratulations SEEK
At first glance, SEEK’s careers pages can seem relatively superficial. But dig a bit deeper and their clean, simple, and uncluttered pages provide a wealth of information and do a good job of making it seem like an inclusive, engaging workplace. SEEK has proven that even big-name brands can remain human and engaging in the right ways.
And that’s why they’re the winner of January’s Alfie award.
