What’s a Career Page?
It’s not a stupid question.
You might be thinking (since you likely work in some type of recruiting, hiring, or HR position) it’s obviously a page where you post your company’s vacancies. You’re not wrong, but it’s more than that.
A career page, through language, visuals and yes, posted vacancies, summarises what your company is all about and what it’s like to work there. It shows what your brand stands for — it describes the culture and evokes emotion from the viewer.
A career page — when successful — sells your mission, culture and personality to applicants.
(It’s important to note that career pages, although similar to careers sites, do differ. Careers sites are separate micro-sites designed to be an extension of your corporate website. Career pages are hosted directly on your site.)
How’s it different from a job advert?
Job adverts are part of your career page. They should be easily accessible and clearly visible on your career page, but they’re different entities.
Job adverts describe, specifically, what the job entails. They should provide as much information as they possibly can without deterring the applicant. Further, adverts should try to capture the company culture while explaining the job’s responsibilities.
Good job adverts are difficult to write, especially when they’re housed on different job boards like Indeed or Glassdoor. Without the support of a career page, or great copy, they can fall short. This isn’t to say your job adverts shouldn’t be posted everywhere, they should. But they should also live on your career page.
Career Pages: Where Job Adverts Come Into Their Own
Career pages are windows into the soul of your workplace. They should showcase the best of your company culture and the employees that create it. Your career page should make everyone that visits it want to work for your company.
How can you accomplish this? Through these features:
Vacancies
First and foremost your career page should provide detailed descriptions of the vacancies at your company. If your company is small (no more than 5-10 vacancies at a given time) a single page career page should suffice as long as it includes the necessary features.
However, if your company is large (50-100 vacancies at a given time) you’ll want to have an easily searchable listing of vacancies. Your listed vacancies should have filtering options, allowing applicants to search for vacancies by department.
Although your career page should provide much more than just information about current vacancies, it’s important to note vacancies are the main reason the viewer is visiting the page.
Visuals
Visuals are key to any successful career page. Anyone can write about how great their work environment is, but visuals show how great it is. An image of your team with smiling faces at a company retreat or event will do wonders in describing the culture of your workplace.
Further, videos can be a great feature as well. For example, if you have a sleek, downtown office — show it off! Video tours can be a great asset for your career page and can help applicants feel more familiar with your office space.
Testimonials
Nothing compares to hearing, first-hand, what it’s like to work at your company. Including employee testimonials on your career page will authenticate everything you’ve written in your job adverts. Further, it will give applicants a sense of how their future co-workers feel about the company.
Testimonials can also include accolades, ratings or rewards your company has won. For example, if your company is ranked highly on Glassdoor, you’ll want to include this on your career page.
Mission Statement
Finally, including your company’s mission statement is important as well. It informs your applicants of what, specifically, you’re trying to achieve. It provides direction and reasoning behind what you’re working towards — and direction breeds action.
Need some inspiration?
Two Career Pages to Learn From
Here are a few career pages that Webrecruit has built that you can use to inspire your own.
Blue Cross’ career page includes video and easily searchable vacancies. It shows, clearly, what positions are available to apply for and what the company is all about.
Sue Ryder’s career page includes a visual and statement informing what they do. Further, their page is easily searchable with filters applicable to their current vacancies.
To learn more about how Webrecruit can help attract top-talent to fill your vacancies, check out, The Beginners Guide to Careers Sites.
