Potential candidates are no longer simply trolling major job boards in search of opportunities. Savvy searchers are using social media and – catch this – 85 percent of them are turning to companies’ career pages to learn about potential openings. This is according to Blogging 4 Jobs, a workplace resource for HR professionals and business leaders.
A recent Online Talent Communication Study by Potentialpark has revealed Ernst & Young, Bertelsmann and GEICO currently boast the top three career sites in the U.S. The study, which polled nearly 1,600 students and graduates on their experiences with 119 top employers’ career sites, found that the organizations at the top of the leaderboard were believed by job seekers to have the best online application processes.
So what do the top sites have in common?
For starters, their career sites are easy to find. Front and center, more specifically. Often links to career pages are buried at the bottom of the homepage, among links for customer service and privacy policies. Not wise placement if recruiting is part of the company’s central focus.
And each of the top three sites are mobile friendly. This is standard anymore. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, remedy that situation posthaste. Job seekers are increasingly relying on mobile devices to conduct their searches both for the sake of immediacy – TheLadders has found that job seekers need to apply to a job within 72 hours of its initial posting for greatest success – and because it’s more convenient. Instead of staring at the wall while waiting for an oil change or browsing the clearance racks at Starbucks while waiting for their order, job seekers can jump online to check the latest job postings. Today’s job seekers want to be able to pick up the search anytime, anywhere.
Also notable is that these sites look good. They’re visually pleasing, heavy on icons, images and video. According to video production firm Three Motion, video is more than six times as effective as print and companies whose sites feature video have a 53 percent higher chance of making first-page Google ranking.
With so many job seekers heading straight to the source to find job openings, investing in your company’s career site –taking a page from the playbooks of the top three career sites – may prove to be very well worth the effort.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
