Career sites are one of the earliest interactions candidates have with an employer’s brand and critical for talent acquisition. Some firms manage their career sites like any other administrative part of the application process (i.e. poorly), while others leverage the opportunity to market their brand, creatively engage candidates, and construct delightful experiences for visitors.
Further, a well designed Career Site enables firms to track and analyze the applicant experience, and to understand where in the process candidates may be experiencing friction or dropoff. This allows the talent acquisition team to respond by optimizing workflows or designs.
Ready for a new #CareerSite? @TalentTechLabs discusses three common approaches to consider: Click To TweetYour current website may need updating if:
- Does not allow job postings or referrals
- Candidates cannot browse and save jobs
- Is not integrated with ATS/CRM
- Does not provide analytics
Three options are available for building a the best career site.
1. Build From Scratch Internally: While building a career site from scratch might be a tempting endeavor, without an extremely clear understanding of the career site requirements and roadmap, it can quickly turn into a very complex project. Couple that with the costs associated with maintaining a home-grown career site and this can quickly become a very expensive and risky solution.
2. Build From Scratch via Agency: Going with a web design agency is a safer bet because they offer experience and expertise; however, this approach also requires quite a bit of work and requires due diligence so you’re able to articulate requirements and goals. This also requires stellar project management to keep things on the rails.
3. Candidate Relationship Management (CRM): Building a career site either from scratch or through an agency will require a sizable amount of heavy lifting from employers. Choosing a CRM allows for a more “out-of-the-box” implementation with configurability, and additional benefits such as advanced analytics, potentially more responsive design (for mobile or tablets), along with pre-configured integrations or at least the ability to have integrations built.
Before embarking on this adventure, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Integrations: At a minimum, the Career Site should integrate with the ATS and a CRM (if applicable). Business decisions should be made with potential future requirements in mind. We believe a CRM with an open API, all else equal, is typically the best solution for this reason.
- Not all career sites are made equal: Some vendors will emphasize design above function or vice versa. You need to understand your exact requirements and plan accordingly.
- Treat career sites like e-commerce sites: The prevailing trend is for career sites to operate in a similar fashion to ecommerce sites, allowing candidates to favorite (save) jobs, upload their details into a talent pool, save preferences, and receive recommendations for specific jobs.
Additional content is available in our latest Playbook: Building a Career Site (free for members). We outline three common approaches, present the pros and cons for each, and discuss additional considerations that should be taken into account when making a decision. We also provide vendor examples and explain how other firms have architected their own career sites.