Marketing Specialist at Ongig

Ongig's job description platform that helps you attract the best talent faster. Ongig supercharges your job descriptions through video, images, and other media along with live chat, social sharing, and careers microsite creation. Early clients of Ongig include Yelp, GoDaddy, Verizon Digital and Autodesk.

11 Must-Have Company Career Site Features

Table of Contents (Note: Click the links here to fast-forward to specific must-have features):

A Compelling Headline
Videos
Images
Clear Calls-To-Action
Easy to Find Job Descriptions/Openings
Talent Network Opt-In
Career Site FAQ
Company Values
Perks & Benefits
Social Proof
Recruiting Microsites

1. A Compelling Headline

It’s a shame that most company career home pages use just “Careers” or “Jobs” as their headline. Boring.

Instead, write like a copywriter and be attention-grabbing like Shopify (pictured below), focused (like Pivotal):or leverage social proof (like Salesforce) in your headline.

If you can’t settle on one headline, take Eventbrite’s approach: Their headline is like a live ticker and types in unique talents as you watch it — like stilt walking, arcade enthusiasts, musicians, and more.

Alienate The Non-Prospect Headlines

This is a marketing principle that preaches: rarely does it make sense to go after every single person in the world as your customer.

Take Huge Inc — when they open up with a headline like “Get paid for giving a shit” they are clearly going to attract certain candidates and “alienate” a bunch other “non-prospects”.

In recruiting this of the utmost importance as you don’t want to waste time interviewing people who are not “[name of your company] material”.

You can alienate non-prospects through a number of ways such as video and culture.

Check out call center Global Telesourcing — they show team members dancing and being goofy. This will turn on high-energy/extrovert candidates (their target!) and repel candidates who are low-energy and introverts (their non-prospects!).

2. Videos

Why should you feature videos on your company career site?

Including a video on your landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80% (Unbounce)
On average, people spend 2.6x more time on pages with video than without. (Wistia)
Viewers are 95% more likely to remember a call to action after watching a video, compared to 10 percent when reading it in text format (Oberlo).

Feature/Hero Videos

One of the best ways to spark engagement off the bat is to have your video front and center.

Making them short (under 60 seconds) is recommended.

SAS does a good job at this with a 47-second employer brand video featured.

You can also go with a full screen video like Pinterest:

Supporting Videos

If you don’t want to show a video as your hero media, you can use it lower on the page for supporting material.

Netflix has 3 supporting videos lower on their career home page that include a program-focused video, company event-focused video, and employee-focused video.

It’s also ok to have a commercial video as long as it’s supporting a theme that matters to candidates.

3. Images

Images are another way to go for feature/hero media for your career page.

Images are a more cost-effective to create compared to video.

The feature image should grab the candidate’s attention. Odds are your company already has some eye-catching images for branding you can consider.

Feature/Hero

The feature/hero image is the main image candidates see when they land on your careers page. It should grab the candidate’s attention.

Check out Inkling’s career page — the feature image shows a diverse group of employees that are smiling and having fun.

4. Clear Calls-to-Action

What’s the main thing you want candidates to do when they land on your career page?

Make sure these calls-to-action stand out by:

Making the call-to-action the first thing the candidate sees (above the fold)
Making the call-to-action text bigger
Making call-to-action buttons a different color than other page elements.

SnackNation’s career page calls-to-action are:

Watch the Video
View Open Positions

It’s an interesting exercise to see what your existing career home page call-to-action is by conducting the squint-test: squint while looking at your career page and see what graphical elements jumps out (that is what the candidate sees as your primary call-to-action — is that what you want them to see?).

5. Easy To Find Job Descriptions/Openings

Job descriptions are the most vital content to candidates.

My rule of thumb is if a candidate can’t see how or where to view your job openings within 2 seconds, you’re failing.

Morton Salt has their job search box directly on their careers landing page and it’s above-the-fold. This makes it close to impossible miss their job openings.

6. Talent Network Opt-In

Only a certain percentage of candidates will apply to your jobs after visiting your company career site.

It’s very important to have an option for those who don’t apply right away.

The names and email addresses you collect should be sent to your recruiting team to nurture these potential candidates with recruiting content and new job openings.

Here’s an example of Dell’s talent network opt-in on their career page:

7. Career Site FAQ

Odds are job seekers and candidates will have at least one question whether its about the hiring process or working at your company.

Having an FAQ will section/page on your career site will help keep the candidate engaged. Microsoft has a comprehensive career FAQ section with collapsible questions so you can see the whole list of questions before choosing one.

8. Company Values

If your company has specific, well-defined values then you should show that on your career homepage.

Many companies dedicate a section of their career homepage to their values.

Virta Health has their values section right below their feature image on their career page.

9. Perks & Benefits

Want to engage candidates right away?

Focus on what the THEY get (aka perks & benefits).

Perks and benefits are one of the top things candidates look for when researching employers.

Ellation does a great job articulating their perks, they also make it more visual too.

Want more Benefits ideas? Check out A List of 20 Awesome Employee Benefits .

10. Social Proof

Social proof is a proven technique of persuasion. When uncertain, people look to the actions of others to decide their own.

That’s why it’s important to have social proof on your company career site.

These small things like this can contribute to closing a candidate.

Here are some types of social proof to add to your career site:

Employee Generated Content/Testimonials

A while back we published the blog post 5 Ways to Utilize Your Employees On Your Job Ads and highlighted the importance of employee generated content/testimonials.

Here are some significant stats:

Salesforce dedicates a section of their career page to employee testimonials. They also have a link “More from our favorite storytellers” that clicks through to a page with 9 more employee testimonials.

Employer of Choice Awards

Another great way of getting social proof on your career site is employer of choice awards.

These awards usually have badges that you can put on your pages.

Workday is a great example of a company showcasing their employer of choice awards:

Scroll down further on Workday’s career page and they list more employer of choice awards and rankings:

11. Recruiting Microsites

Microsites are a way of attracting candidates through targeted landing pages.

It’s a good idea to have these pages easily accessible and visible on your career page.

ADT has an awesome career page and does a great job of this:

The image above is the first thing you see when you land on ADT’s career page.

Notice how they get the candidate to choose a job category off the bat.

The 4 categories link to 4 different recruiting microsites.

Here’s what the Sales recruiting microsite looks like:

Notice how all of the content is targeted toward Sales candidates.

That’s how you deliver an exceptional candidate experience on your career site.

Here are a couple of recruiting microsite ideas:

Department-specific microsites (covered above with ADT)
Location-specific microsites (i.e. states and/or cities)
Work from home microsite
University/Internships microsite
Diversity and Inclusion microsite

If you want to learn more check out our Recruiting Microsites Guide.

Are you creating a new company career site?

Check out Creating a New Company Career Site: The Definitive Guide.

List of Creative Ideas to Add to Your Company Career Site

Table of Contents (Note: Click links here to fast-forward to specific creative features):

Dedicated URL for Career Page
Diversity Pie Chart
Show Your Recruitment Team
Featured Jobs
Careers Blog
Career-Specific Header Navigation Bar
Careers Quiz
Cool Messages in HTML Code of Career Site
Career Site Wide Chatbot
External Referral Program
Interactive Video Search
Career Progression with Timeline
Interview Process Details
Day in the Life Profiles
“Meet Our Community of Experts”
Chat with Employee Insiders
A Visual Path for Advancement/Mobility
Translate My Skills (for Veterans)
LinkedIn Job Match
Storybooks
Project Examples
Top Reasons to Work for You
Mobile App for Careers
Find A Job Like (Employee’s Name)
Internal Communities of Interest
Message from the CEO
The Perfect Candidate

1. Dedicated URL for Career Site

Expedia (LifeAtExpediaGroup.com) and Global Telesourcing (WorkAtGT.com) are examples of companies using a unique URL for their career sites.

The main benefit is that you are not bogged down by anything unrelated to recruiting.

2. Diversity Pie Chart

If you’re serious about diversity, why not show your data.

Sharing it publicly shows transparency. Candidates love this!

Pandora and Apple are leading the pack.

Here’s Apple’s diversity data from their Careers site. Notice how the numbers are far from perfect. But candidates know the old adage “that which is measured is improved.”

Translation: candidates know Apple is serious about diversity.

3. Show Your Recruitment Team

The more information you can give candidates about your company, the better your chances are to get them to apply on the spot.

A big piece of info is recruitment team. Candidates want to know who they’ll be talking to.

This level of transparency is key to attracting A-Player candidates. Here is Deluxe’s “Meet our Recruitment Team” section:

4. Featured Jobs

It’s important to showcase a handful of jobs on your career page that are most important at the moment.

Focusing on filing one particular role/position?

Conversant media has a cool featured job link right above their job search box.

Every candidate that searches for a job will see this link. This is a great way to boost visibility for a need-to-fill job.

5. Careers Blog

Content is king right now.

More employers are creating a careers blog to engage talent.

Goldman Sachs, for example, features employee Q&A’s, company views and initiatives:

McKinsey keeps an awesome, up-to-date career blog.

Here’s the blog section on their careers page:

That clicks through to their careers blog:

If one department is really key for you, it might make sense to have a blog for it. Eventbrite does that for Engineers with new monthly in-depth posts.

6. Career-Specific Header Navigation Bar

Odds are your career site contains multiple pages.

Make it easy for candidates to navigate. ADP has done this.

Notice how you can reach any of their pages from the header navigation bar. This creates a better experience for the candidate.

7. Careers Quiz

BNY Mellon offers a Careers Quiz that analyzes your answers to find the right fit for the candidate.

Here’s the first question of the quiz to give you an idea of what the questions are like:

8. Cool Messages in HTML Code of Career Site

Hiring tech folks?

Some technical candidates will look at your source code and Tenable stands out for including their name and copy “If you’re looking at this, we want to hire you”.

9. Career Site Wide Chatbot

A timely (if not immediate) response is key to keeping candidates engaged on your company career site. If a candidate is asking questions that means they’re interested.

You don’t have to send them to a contact us form with a “we’ll get back to you later” confirmation.

You can instead try a Chatbot. AA has their chatbot peeking out on their header navigation bar.

We’ve seen different versions of chatbots (see 5 Uses of Chatbots in Recruiting).

Some just pop-up the chat box right on the page.

Others send candidates to a chat page when they click “Let’s chat”.

10. External Referral Program

You know how well internal employee referrals work, don’t you? How about EXTERNAL referrals!

Leidos does a great job offering incentive for referrals.

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11. Interactive Video Search

Candidates on Hilton Grand Vacation’s job search page can do an interactive video job search.

Candidates press play and get some quick tips:

Then get to pick a specific department:

Once the candidate picks a department, a department-specific video plays:

While also returning a relevant set of jobs underneath:

12. Career Progression with Timeline

Tata Global Beverages shows 2 examples of a real-life employee’s career path.

Talk about showing a candidate journey!

13. Interview Process Details

Candidates want to know what they’re in for when applying to your jobs. You’ll also gain more of their trust letting them know the process up front.

Comcast dedicates a whole page on their career site to the hiring process with videos and FAQs.

14. Day in the Life Profiles

BNY Mellon shows in-depth profiles of a day in the life of their employees.

The topics they feature on their Day in the Life profiles are:

My Role
A Day in My Life
Three Things That Surprised Me After I Started Working at BNY Mellon
Where I want to be in 5 years

Very well put together.

You can also go with a video of the CEO message which is what Teleflex did.

15. “Meet Our Community of Experts”

Highlighting the main types of jobs with authentic pics really stands out.

Candidates are very likely to imagine themselves in one of the 9 groups listed by ICF below:

Each job type links off to a recruiting microsite that features:

Employee pictures
Featured/Hot job openings
Employee testimonials
“Get to know other ICF Threat Experts” — Each employee name links off to their profile.

16. Chat with Employee Insiders

Your employees are often your best recruiters.

Check out how Nestle offers up some employee ambassadors (“Insiders”) for candidates to chat with.

17. A Visual Path for Advancement/Mobility

Here’s a good one if you have a business with tiers of jobs that candidates advance through (e.g. Law firms, management consultants, etc.).

Show a visual of each job with the expected duration of each tier. Williams Marston (Consultants) has this nice visual that also has the benefit of showing an ascending/upward trajectory — it feels like I (the candidate) will grow upward at this biz!

18. Translate My Skills (for Veterans)

GE Appliances dedicates a section to Veterans on their career page.

Clicking “Translate My Skills” sends candidates to an exclusive veteran job search page. They see job openings by matching their skills and military code.

19. LinkedIn Job Match

LinkedIn allows you to use a widget that recommends jobs for candidates who are logged into LinkedIn.

UPS offers this on their careers home page by their job search box. This give candidates another way to find specific job openings.

20. Storybooks

Wow, a company called Scality creates books honoring their clients. Now we’re talkin!

21. Project Examples

Gigster dedicates a section to project examples/challenges that inspire them. It’s right on their career landing page.

If a candidate’s motivations are in-line with yours, they’re a great fit for your company!

22. Top Reasons to Work for You

Many employers have a “Why work for me?” section and that’s fine. But in copywriting, words matter and if you have a headline called “The Top X Reasons Why to Work for [You]”, that is the type of headline that typically converts well.

Autodesk famously did a skunkworks project in which they listed the “Top 7 Reasons You Should Work at Autodesk” and got 1.9 million candidates to view it (and counting!).”

Comtrade links to a “See Why Working at Comtrade is so Rewarding” page from their career page.

23. Mobile App For Careers

If you have the resources, you might consider creating a free mobile app for candidates interested in knowing more about what it’s like to work for you (Goldman Sachs has one called Make an Impact that guides you through the recruiting process including tips on prepping for an interview).

DisneyLand Paris also offers one (warning: you need to speak French).

24. Find A Job Like (Employee’s Name)

A nice career page idea from GE.

It lets candidates read bios of employees they feel a connection with and then find a job like that employee’s job.

25. Internal Communities of Interest

Ultimate Software shows employee groups with names like Pride/LGBT, Women in Leadership, and UltiVets. — Ultimate Software

26. Message From the CEO

This will help with the transparency of the company and intro potential job candidates to leadership and their values.

TWD has a long form message. Notice how they link to a bunch of their career site content within the message. Including links to :

Career landing page
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) page
Benefits page
Ethics page
What we do page

27. The Perfect Candidate

Surprisingly few companies describe their perfect candidate.

Don’t be afraid to describe who you want to hire. Check out Parker’s perfect candidate section:

Why I wrote this

Ongig’s mission is to increase quality hires for you through the best job pages.

I wrote this article because many candidates look at your career page first before searching for your jobs. So the better you can engage them the better the chances are of them applying.

Ongig’s Career Site Builder allows you to customize your candidate experience on your career site.

June 27, 2016 by Nick Misa in Company Career Site