With the rise in recruitment technology and employer branding initiatives, businesses are beginning to understand the appeal of an attractive and engaging careers site.
However, although many companies are aware of the benefits that careers sites can bring, we still hear objections when discussing them with clients looking for a way to raise their employer brand presence.
In our latest blog, we debunk some of the most common myths associated with careers sites and explain how every company, no matter what their size, can benefit from one.
“I already have a careers page – surely a careers site is unnecessary?”
A careers page on your website is a great first step to give your vacancies some exposure and promote yourself as an employer. However, there are many added benefits to having a careers site, particularly focusing on the technology running in the background.
For example, a careers page is a static page on your website, where your Marketing or IT team will be required to add and remove new and expired vacancies manually. A careers site, on the other hand, will automatically update with any new vacancies you add to your Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
Additionally, careers sites usually allow prospective candidates to sign up for job alerts and register their interest in working for you. Careers pages typically wouldn’t have this functionality; put simply, there’s a lot more going on in the background of a careers site, rather it just being another page of your website.
“Careers sites are too expensive.”
Like an ATS, a careers site doesn’t have to be expensive. Of course, if you want a completely bespoke site with dozens of pages and plenty of advanced functionality then it’s likely to cost you. However, you’ll also find that there are plenty of affordable options out there if you don’t need something that’s completely customisable.
For example, Webrecruit offers a range of cost-effective careers site templates, as well as a bespoke offering and more simplistic ways of connecting a careers page with your ATS.
This means that you don’t necessarily have to invest in a completely bespoke site but you can still make your brand stand out and reap all the benefits that careers sites offer.
“I don’t have the time to maintain and manage a careers site and neither does our Marketing team.”
After set-up, most careers sites actually take very little maintenance. Marketing would likely need to involved in the design of the site to provide corporate colours and any imagery to ensure that the site is on brand and in keeping with your main company website.
However, once the site is live they would be required to do very little, only when they would need to update your company details. As touched on before, your HR and recruitment team will be able to update and remove jobs themselves via your ATS so your careers site will be self-sufficient.
“We don’t hire enough to justify having a careers site.”
Whether you make 10 or 1,000 hires a year, a well-designed careers site can bring a plethora of benefits to your business.
For large companies who recruit for hundreds of roles a year, the need for a careers site is perhaps more obvious. For small businesses, a careers site is a great tool to collect speculative applications and allow candidates to register for job alerts; so, even when you’re not actively hiring you have a ready-made pool of talent for when the time comes to make your next hire. This will help to reduce both your time and cost of recruiting.
A careers site is also the ideal platform where smaller businesses can get their brand out there and establish themselves as an employer of choice. They’re the perfect place to talk about what it’s like to work for your company to attract future talent.
“I like the idea of a careers site but how can I measure its ROI?”
Integrating your careers site with an ATS, such as Webrecruit ATS, will allow you to report on how many applications are made via your careers site versus your other advertising sources. You can then use this data to influence your future decision making, for example your advertising spend.
Additionally, when you add prospective applicants into your talent pool on Webrecruit ATS you can report on how many candidates within that talent pool you’ve placed in roles within your business.
Thinking of investing in a careers site? Find out more about Webrecruit’s offering and the benefits careers sites can bring to your candidate attraction and employer branding efforts.
