Tips, strategies and ideas for any company

2/35

Introduction

Converting Visitors into Candidates

Career pages are among the most highly trafficked pages on a corporate website. Visitors to these pages arrive due to interest in the company or via job advertising, Internet searches, word of mouth, referrals, recruiters, and any other recruiting channels. Some arrive with a purposeful goal (applying for a new job), while others are just window shopping for a better opportunity.

The long-lived tag line for U.S. Navy recruiting campaign struck a resonant chord. Prospective employees want more than a paycheck and benefits; they want a work experience that fits their values and aspirations. It’s up to you to paint a picture of the job, company and people who work there. You want visitors to arrive to your career site, feel welcomed and want to apply. The time frame in which you have to capture their attention is a very small window. So make it count.

Keep the end goal in mind. You want quality conversions, not high volumes of traffic. Don’t make the mistake of investing more effort in attracting traffic than converting visitors. You need to romance these visitors.

Before prospects hit the apply button, they need to be engaged in a vision of your company, what it’s like to work there, who they will be working with, and what goals they’ll be working toward. What you say and how you say it will shape each candidate’s experience and will give these prospects the insight required to apply and pursue the opportunity.

This eBook is packed with examples of career sites that are intentionally constructed to capture the interest of the targeted talent and convert that interest into applications. Take a look at how these companies are creating compelling candidate experiences and clip some ideas that you can adapt for your brand and jobs.

3/35

Chapter 1: Branding Your Career Site

Your Company’s Most Powerful Recruiting Asset

Company career sites are frequently not treated with the respect that they deserve. We’ve all seen the beautiful corporate website that hits a wall at the Careers section – generic imagery, indifferent copy, clunky looking job listings. When visitors look at your company career site, you want them to be excited about your brand and understand that this is the message and umbrella under which they may be working.

When creating a career site, the first and most essential aspect to consider is your brand. It is your company’s most powerful recruiting asset. If your brand is not fully and engagingly incorporated into your career site, then you are missing a huge opportunity. After all, it’s the brand that you are trying to grow by hiring more employees.

Think about your brand’s unique selling proposition or what sets your products or services apart from competitors. Ask yourself, “What is the promise to our customers on which we want our employees to deliver as a member of the team?”

The HUGE career site uses vivid photography and high impact design to communicate the talent, diversity, values (and fun) that sets the company apart.

Career site: HUGE

4/35

Chapter 1: Branding Your Career Site

Translating Your Brand to Your Career Site

You want your prospects to understand your brand message and be excited about building that brand by working for your company. An effective brand message should do the following:

• Deliver a Message • Be Credible • Connect on an Emotional Level • Motivate the Prospect • Create Loyalty

Since you have an established brand, translate this brand to your career site. What drives your company? What do current employees focus on when building campaigns and creating an emotion around your company offerings?

On the Zynga website, the transition between corporate website and career site is seamless. You’ll see fun everywhere on the website of this social games developer.

Career site: Zynga

5/35

Chapter 1: Branding Your Career Site

Open positions and job description details fit in smoothly with the structure and theme of the website.

Career site: Zynga

6/35

Chapter 1: Branding Your Career Site

Example: Match.com Builds Its Career Brand

Match.com’s career site provides a unique take on their brand and utilizes its message to attract and engage prospective employees. The product is online dating, but the brand is love. The Match.com career page highlights three key online marketing points.

First, it positions the brand in a playful, but truthful manner and highlights certain aspects of the company’s culture. On this page, you can see that Match.com wants their prospects to both love their work and understand that employees are working to help people fall in love.

Secondly, this career site has a simple navigation bar that leads visitors right to the nitty-gritty of what they need to know about working for Match.com. Core facts and interesting news about the company are readily available alongside company press and several featured opportunities. All this information is easy to see and carefully chosen to communicate elements of the employment brand.

Third, the site works to build a relationship with the prospective candidate – even if the job application transaction is not completed on the first visit. Of course, visitors can easily browse and apply to jobs, but the site has two other interesting calls-to-action (CTAs). The first is the LinkedIn Insider widget, which allows visitors to see how many LinkedIn connections they have to Match.com as well as a link to follow the company.

Career site: Match.com

7/35

Chapter 1: Branding Your Career Site

The second CTA provides visitors with the option to receive Job Alerts so that they find out about new opportunities should the positions currently available not appeal to them. It’s a welcoming “If you don’t see what you like now, please come back later” message that reinforces the relationship building intent of the site. By including these CTAs, Match.com provides multiple ways for prospective employees to connect with the company in the way that’s right for them.

This and other successful career sites are extensions of company values, personality and brand.

Career site: Match.com

8/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

Paint a Picture with Words and Images

You career site can help candidates visualize working for your company. It’s one thing to talk about what your company represents – innovation, free lunches, active lifestyle – but it’s another to show it through imagery. For example, there’s no mistaking that you’re working for a company that emphasizes athletic culture when you look at Adidas. However, this may not be so clear for other companies. Career site: Twitter

9/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

Don’t assume that visitors to your career site know all about your company or who works there. Photos, illustrations and videos can shape the story about your company’s culture, work atmosphere and the opportunity offered. People are looking for more than salary and benefits from a prospective employer. Show them what your company provides employees on your career site – and help them imagine how they’ll contribute on daily basis.

Career site: Yammer

10/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

The visuals on your career site can provide a genuine insight into the work experience at your company and a way to attract your target talent. If you don’t have a big budget for career site photo and video shoots, don’t worry. Companies frequently use snaps and videos captured by employees at company events or around the office. The informal nature of the images contributes to the insider view feeling.

Career site: Shutterfly

11/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

Does your company have pool tables or cubicles?

The tone of your copy and the graphics that you use should tell the story of what it’s like to work at your company. Zappos, for example, offers visitors a real sense of the playful and social yet hard working environment the company has.

Culture is the headline on the Zappos career site, and visitors have plenty of opportunity to explore through blogs, videos, and other social media channels to understand the dynamic of the office. Applicants are even asked to upload a video cover letter instead of a traditional one and have an option to include their social profiles.

Employees have posted videos regarding Zappos corporate culture and even a music video that emphasizes the company’s creative and quirky vibe. Ask yourself, “Is this company the type that has pool tables or cubicles – and why?” then market your career site accordingly.

Career site: Zappos.com, Inc.

12/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

Company Values – Make It Personal

In addition to your brand and unique selling proposition, candidates want to understand what makes your story so relevant to them. What about your company would make someone want to work here? Zappos demonstrates its “fun and a little weird” environment, but makes the point that this environment is about more than a free lunch and fun times. It’s a family with its own set of Core Values.

Other companies, despite having fun products, have a more serious demeanor to their company story. Etsy, an ecommerce website that allows artists and consumers worldwide to buy and sell crafts, clearly states its vision “to build a new economy and present a better choice: to buy, sell and live handmade.” Their career site includes a video that conveys a level of emotion toward crafts as well as key company accomplishments.

Career site: Etsy

13/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

The Jive career site prominently features a short video the explains the brand promise of the company’s social business software – a smart way to engage prospects who aren’t familiar with the technology.

Career site: Jive

14/35

Chapter 2: What Is This Place?

Your career site can do more than list jobs; it can share your story, your mission, and the reason why it’s a great place to work. The end goal is to attract quality leads and find the right candidates to fill the positions available. It’s not a numbers game of how much traffic you can drive to your career site but rather how well your site attracts and converts your target audience.

Career site: OPOWER

15/35

Chapter 3: Who Works Here?

Introduce Employees to Candidates

Introducing employees is a compelling way to capture visitors’ attention. Before they apply, candidates certainly consider the people with whom they will be spending 40 to 50+ hours a week − perhaps more than you would spend with anyone else. A new employee wants to feel comfortable that they’ll be working with colleagues they like and trust.

Career site: Emma

16/35

Chapter 3: Who Works Here?

Are You for Real?

Visitors to career sites want to know if they fit in with both the company culture and the kinds of people who work there. They want a tangible vision of the employees. There are people behind this machine and candidates more often than not will want to see who’s behind the curtain. Putting employees on your career site gives your talent brand a face – multiple ones.

Inkling offers visitors a photo series of featured employees. This clean format allows visitors to browse through the accomplishments and faces of the people with which they might be working.

Career site: : Inkling

Career site: Dropbox

17/35

Chapter 3: Who Works Here?

Company Culture Meets Employee Life

Yelp’s career site, below, proffers a short story of what it’s like to work at Yelp. Although current openings take center stage, it is easy to navigate employee life content such as “A day in the life of a Yelp Staffer,” complete with employees’ Yelp profiles and quotations about their experiences and love of working at the company.

Yelp also indicates its locations as well as bulleted and clear-cut reasons as to what makes working at the company great. At the bottom of the page, Yelp highlights two different blogs, an option to receive job alerts, check your application, as well as a few of the company’s accomplishments.

Career site: Yelp

18/35

Chapter 3: Who Works Here?

Strategies for Hard-to-Fill Positions

Companies, who compete to fill certain types of jobs or hire a large volume in key functional areas, often focus parts of the career site on those jobs. Blogs that are specific to a functional area or job type are a meaningful way to help candidates learn more about what it’s like to work in that area of the company. You can create specific sections of your career site to market these positions, using blogs, employee profiles, video interviews with employees and key points of pride.

Jive Software uses one page to tell engineering prospects about locations, values and open jobs.

Career site: Inflection

Career site: Jive Software

19/35

On its career site, Airbnb embeds a video featuring interviews with the Air Crew, the company’s customer support team.

Chapter 3: Who Works Here?

Career site: Airbnb

20/35

Chapter 4: Job Description as a Key Marketing Tool

Motivate People to Apply – Don’t Put Them to Sleep

Now that you’ve taken the time to properly brand your site, share your culture, and feature employee life, don’t post job descriptions that are a dry list of boring qualifications and requirements. The best performing career sites feature engaging job descriptions that reflect the brand, culture and environment – as well as what’s needed to succeed in this job.

What Job Seekers Really See

Many of your job marketing efforts and campaigns will point people directly to these descriptions. When crafting job descriptions, remember that the reader may arrive at this page without seeing any of your beautiful career site branding, imagery and messaging.

Don’t bog down your descriptions with a lot of administrative boilerplate. No one wants to read that. Too many descriptions are written as wishlists with long, impossible catalog of qualifications. A boring job description says, “boring job.”

The best descriptions are targeted toward the best candidates for the job. What do you need include in order to get them excited about the opportunity? Extend the copywriting tone of your career site so that job descriptions have a voice that speaks to the audience you want to attract. Consult some resources on how to write great copy that will really sell your jobs.

Remember that before the applicant sees the “Apply” button…

21/35

Chapter 4: Job Description as a Key Marketing Tool

They will read about the job.

You spend a lot of time, money, and brain power on driving traffic to your career site. But when those people land on your job descriptions, you have the opportunity to convert traffic to applicants.

This Yelp job description includes just six short bullet points on requirements, but takes the time to tell a story about this job and why it’s important.

Career site: Yelp

22/35

Chapter 4: Job Description as a Key Marketing Tool

HUGE Inc’s requisitions are very direct and to the point. This is what we need, what about you?

Career site: HUGE

23/35

Chapter 4: Job Description as a Key Marketing Tool

Be Engaging

Whatever style you chose to voice your requisitions, each description must be engaging and realistic. A candidate will know right off the bat if your requisitions are asking too much.

Do a little market research to help position the job in an appealing yet direct way. Interview people with similar job roles or ask the hiring manager, “What are the best parts of this job and what skills are essential?”

Circulate descriptions to people in the department and test which ones are most effective. Would your coworkers apply?

TiVo succinctly outlines specifics in descriptions that are not inundated with bullet points. Here’s what you’ll get to do and here’s what you need to be successful. The company also uses the LinkedIn Insider widget, which allows visitors to view their connections to TiVo. Little tidbits of information like this will help a candidate decide if he or she wants to work there.

Career site: TiVo

24/35

Chapter 4: Job Description as a Key Marketing Tool

Meetup uses a conversational tone to clearly explain the job and responsibilities; this is far from a dry-as-toast job requisition.

Career site: Meetup

25/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Be Nice to Your Applicants

The last thing an applicant wants to do is go through a tedious, multi-step process in order to apply for an exciting job. The most qualified and in-demand people will be the least motivated to jump through hoops on your website, especially if they are already employed.

Marketing professionals are constantly testing and discovering how to maximize registrants by minimizing the number of fields on each form. For every field subtracted, the number of applicants will increase. Think about the bare minimum that you need so that hiring managers and recruiters can make an educated decision on which applicants to contact.

Your interview process can be as rigorous as needed, however, keep in mind that you are not trying to intimidate visitors. It’s a cost/benefit analysis. Extra screening questions on your forms make it easier to review applicants, but may dissuade highly qualified prospects from applying. You want them to apply and to be excited about their application, not irritated because of the number of required fields.

26/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

What Do You Need before an Interview?

Zappos uses a simple two-step application process. Applicants fill out their contact information, cover letter, resume and relevant samples on the first page; and wrap it up on the second page with some additional relevant information. It takes no more than a few minutes to answer the job-related questions that help recruiters decipher which candidates fit the company’s needs.

Extra Sleek

Note HUGE Inc’s application below. What’s required is first name, last name, email address and resume. The rest is a nice to have. Candidate’s phone numbers will be on the resume, and if it’s not, they have the option to include it. Four fields and presto! Application submitted.

Career site: HUGE

27/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Don’t Lose People Along the Way

Be sure that your rich content and engaging employment brand finds a home in a career site that’s easy to navigate, so that casual browsers don’t get lost on the way to the apply page.

SayMedia starts with a bold call-to-action in the career site headline. This clean and scannable format features an elevator pitch upfront and then gets people where they’re going.

Career site: Say Media

28/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Not Everyone Is Ready to Apply

Many people who visit your career site when they’re not serious about looking, or they don’t find a job that fits just now. But you can channel their interest in your jobs by providing options to receive alerts about new openings or allowing them to submit their resume even if their qualifications don’t match the open opportunities.

On the SayMedia site, Job Seeker Tools that help a visitor sign up for job alerts or submit a general application are right up front.

Career site: Say Media

29/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Socialize Your Jobs

Social media provides some easy and powerful ways for you to build engagement with prospective applicants. Featuring a blog and links to corporate social media accounts on the career site gives visitors a way to stay in touch and find out the latest news about your company.

Career site: Crispin Porter + Bogusky

30/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Jobvite customers, like Groupon, enable visitors to share any job with their own networks through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, other social networks and email. Jobvite matching technology can suggest people in their networks who may fit the job. Any visitor to the career site can send a Jobvite, a job invitation, to contacts in their social networks; then recipients can apply – or forward to their own friends. It’s an easy way to build awareness for your jobs in the networks of your talent pool.

Career site: Groupon

31/35

Chapter 5: Make It Easy to Apply

Help Candidates Be Successful

TiVo provides visitors with comprehensive information on how the interview process works. Visitors can browse through tips as well as answers to common questions.

Some people don’t like surprises, and a simple landing page like this one facilitates the interview and gives applicants the opportunity to prepare and understand how the company is run. That way, during the interview, current employees can get right down to business and begin understanding each prospect and his qualifications for the desired position.

Career site: TiVo

32/35

Chapter 6: Metrics for Continuous Improvement

Using Benchmarks and Analytics to Improve Conversions

As the centerpiece of your recruitment marketing campaign, your career site can be a rich source of data.

You can ask applicants questions about how they found the job listing, but they are not the most reliable source of information. Adding this question to your application means another field to fill, a higher percentage of application drop off, and highly inaccurate information.

Unfortunately, many companies rely on job seekers to indicate how they heard about a job. According to the report ATS Sourcing Data: 83% Inaccurate, five out of six job seekers – or more than 83 percent – incorrectly cite where they found out about a job when asked in the apply process.

What does this mean? Companies who rely on candidates to self-identify their source are relying on imprecise data to guide their recruitment marketing programs and budgets.

The truth is, many hiring managers can’t say with confidence where their talent is coming from. It is a dirty secret that’s getting very little attention.”

“

PETER WEDDLE, CEO OF WEDDLE’S

33/35

Chapter 6: Metrics for Continuous Improvement

Get to the Source

Automatically capturing candidate source data through unique URLs provides accurate data and is easier for both you and your applicants. This way you can build reports on where your quality candidates come from and how to better tune your marketing strategy to capture the right candidates.

In order to judge what works, you’ll need to look at a few basic numbers. Ask yourself which pages are getting the most traffic and why. Consider the traffic source of each page as well as the bounce (percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page) and exit (percentage who leave a specific page) rates.

By using unique URLs in the job listings shared on the web or in social networks, you’ll have a precise view of what sources generate traffic, but also which lead to applications, interviews and, ultimately, hires. Jobvite makes this effortless by automatically providing unique URLs for all recruitment marketing and social sharing. Continually monitoring the metrics of recruitment marketing will help you optimize your programs and the performance of your career site.

34/35

ConclusionKeep Optimizing Your Career Site

Your career site is a hub for attracting new talent to your company. You will find that developing a strategy for conversion will both positively impact the number of quality candidates in your recruiting pipeline as well as provide prospects with enough resources and information to make educated decisions about your company.

Don’t let your advertising and outreach dollars go to waste. After all, you are selling the prospect of a dream job, so focus on what your ideal candidates would want. Back up your theories with the appropriate research and data.

Build a Conversion Outline

Capturing applicants is vital to the growth of your company and has a measurable impact on your business as a whole. Therefore, take the time and resources required to improve your conversion rates.

Consider your brand as well as what key factors you want candidates to visualize. What will be the most important selling point for your company? Is it the fun and cool corporate culture or the high profile and creative employees?

Keep Them Coming Back

Once you have a general idea of what type of candidates you want to attract, test what works and review the data. Your career site should be a continually jump point for increasing the value proposition of your company.

Ask questions like, “Where can I make the biggest impact by changing certain steps in our recruitment marketing process?” Think about what would make a candidate want to apply for a position at your company. Do the numbers match up with your theories?

Remember that applicants are people, not just resumes. If you want to retain a high conversion rate of quality candidates, you will need to put a little love into your career site.

35/35

ConclusionKeep Optimizing Your Career Site

About the author

Patrick Neeman is the Director of User Experience with Jobvite. His previous experience includes working with startups to launch their product, User Experience and Social Media consulting with Microsoft, and managing a team of 25 User Experience professionals for a technology consultancy. He also runs a blog, Usability Counts, that covers topics such as User Experience, Social Media, and Web Marketing.

About the career sites

The corporate career sites featured in this ebook are from a selection of Jobvite customers. Each of them have created sites that speak eloquently to their brands, people and amazing opportunities. We’re happy to show you their wonderful work.

On these sites, Jobvite powers the job listings, application process, job alerts, career site analytics and many other functions – including, of course, the ability to Jobvite your friends through social networks. You can easily incorporate this technology in your career site when you subscribe to one of our Software-as-a-Service products, Jobvite Hire or Jobvite Source.

About Jobvite

Jobvite is the only recruiting platform that that delivers real-time recruiting intelligence with innovative technology for the evolving social web. Leading, fast-growing companies today use Jobvite’s social recruiting, sourcing and talent acquisition solutions to target the right talent and build the best teams. Jobvite is a complete, modular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform which can optimize the speed, cost-effectiveness and ease of recruiting for any company. To find out more, take a product tour.

Jobvite Hire is a practical, intuitive web-based platform that helps you effectively manage every stage of hiring. It’s the only social recruiting and applicant tracking solution that makes it easy for everyone to work together on hiring. With Jobvite Hire, you can improve the speed and quality of talent acquisition, create a great candidate experience, increase referral and social network hires – all while using fewer resources.

Jobvite Source, is an easy-to-use web-based application that can help you achieve your recruitment sourcing goals today. It’s the only social sourcing and candidate relationship management application that helps you target relevant talent through employee referrals, social networks and the web – then build and engage your talent pool. Jobvite Source is one intuitive platform to manage all sourcing programs and see the results.

CONNECT WITH US www.jobvite.com www.twitter.com/jobvite www.facebook.com/jobvite 650 376 7200