Careers pages are an integral part of any recruitment strategy.
But there’s no recognised training or standard on how to build one. We all make the best decisions we can, based on available skills, budgets and time.
And let’s be clear about the purpose of a careers page or site. It’s about conversion. Converting curious visitors or potential applicants into actual applicants (They’re not a candidate yet). Maybe not now, but in the future.
We convert by providing a site that’s simple to use and gives the information that’s most relevant to potential applicants. But given that there’s so much that can go into a careers page, where do you start?
We thought about this and crowdsourced opinions on what elements come together and make an effective careers page. We refined them and put them into a scorecard. You can download a copy for yourself here, and critique your own site. With 22 elements covering the finer aspects of 4 key criteria, you’ll be able to make your own careers page more effective.
How it works.
Every month, two of the Crew team and a guest judge will critique 3 nominated careers pages or sites. Using the criteria, a winning site will be awarded the monthly award. Then at the end of the year, the guest judges will come together to find a winner from all of the monthly winners.
That business wins, The Alfie.
It’s going to be a big deal kind of prize too. Maybe 🤷🏻♂️
We’ll add the monthly winners here.
If you want to nominate your own or another careers page or site that you admire then add it to this Google Sheet.
Some fine examples of what we mean;
Netflix have a whole site dedicated to their culture and careers opportunities.
Why we admire it: The experience on the site mirrors their consumer experience, it’s got that similar “big” feel. Congruence between the employer and public facing brand is important if your consumer brand is highly visible, like Netflix. Publicising diversity stats goes a long way to building an inclusive workplace and encouraging diverse applications. Employee driven blogs bring realism to the employee proposition. They also minimise the risk of lip service to the things that are important to potential candidates. In the search bar, top right of the screen, visitors can search by both location and function, making it easy to find relevant openings and intuitive to navigate. That’s a lot of information for a mobile optimised site, but the team have done a great job in that regard. We could go on. And on, and on.
Netguru from Poland have also done a great job with a clearly smaller budget.
Why we admire it: It’s a clean, crisp presentation, with a location search function above the fold. The simple card layout with open and upcoming (smart thinking there) roles has a familiar, contemporary feel. This means there’s minimal cognitive load for visitors when figuring out what to do. We love the fact that roles have salary ranges attached to them. It communicates that there’s an open culture and that will resonate with the right people. Go to one of the junior technical roles and you’ll see that career progression, including salary bands, is described. The interviews with some of the leaders and senior technologists also adds more insight for visitors.
We feel that Careers pages are a direct reflection of the importance placed on its people by a business.
Why, The Alfie?
On September 5th, 1914, World War 1 is underway and Field Marshall Kitchener the Secretary of State for War is tasked with recruiting enough men to win the war.
But British policy for a century has been that recruitment to the British armed forces is strictly volunteer. The Caxton Advertising Agency wins the contract to produce the posters that would underpin the campaign. One of their artists, Alfred Leete produces the now iconic poster featuring Kitchener pointing at the viewer, with the words "Your Country Needs You".
It remains one of the enduring images of the era. Going on to be copied across the world, for a century. The capitalisation of the word YOU, Kitcheners public status, the foreshortened arm and the use of the "differential rotation effect", which gives the effect of eyes following you regardless of your viewpoint, make it a work of genius. One that is attributed to inspiring almost a million men to enlist.
Sure there's been some conjecture and discourse about how effective it was in real terms. However it's arguably the most successful recruitment campaign ever. It's with this spirit that the annual award for the best recruitment careers page or site, is named after Alfred Leete.
The Alfie.
That's him, third from the right.
