Should Organizations Have a Careers Page?

How you present your organization to the outside world says a lot about your values, your mission, and perhaps most importantly, your company culture. Much of this can be communicated through intelligent web design and well-crafted careers pages. Read on for how to optimize your careers page and communicate your brand to prospective candidates.

What is a Careers Page and Should Employers Have One?

A careers page is an organization’s sales pitch to job applicants. It’s the one-stop-shop where candidates can learn about the company, discover its products and services, and get to know its mission and values. It’s also the place where job seekers can find out what it’s like to work for your company and search through open positions.

It almost goes without saying that organizations should absolutely have a careers page on their websites, and many probably do already. Teams should prioritize this because developing an organization’s careers page can have a positive impact on recruiting. According to LinkedIn, job candidates are 1.8 times more likely to apply for a job if they’re familiar with the company.

For smaller organizations, this might seem like a challenge if candidates aren’t usually familiar with your organization. However, smaller teams can put the time and effort into optimizing their careers page to truly use it to their advantage.

Strategies to Optimize Your Careers Page

1. Align with the Marketing and Hiring Team

If you’re posting on job sites, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re aligned with the marketing and recruiting team to ensure that everyone is on the same page. For example, lots of companies share job openings on social media, like LinkedIn and Instagram. If organizations aren’t aligned with the marketing team, they may post the wrong information about a job opening, or send applicants to the wrong place on the site.
Similarly, HR and hiring managers need to closely collaborate with the marketing team to build out the careers page to ensure that it’s as attractive (and effective) as can be. Likewise, the marketing team can help optimize social media and job review sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, which can go a long way towards improving an organization’s reputation among potential candidates.

2. Refocus Your Careers Page

Employers often focus too much on what they want out of a candidate for specific roles. They barrage potential applicants with a collection of different responsibilities and requirements without even pitching them on why they should want to work for the organization in the first place. Employers should be using careers pages and the job descriptions to sell positions to candidates, not tell them what’s required of the position that they haven’t even applied for yet. This means that organizations should want to get as many applications in as possible and weed them out later. The candidate pool will be deeper, more diverse, and likely include several great choices for any open position. The result? Hiring managers can make better decisions and hire the right people for the right roles.

3. Use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to Enhance Your Careers Page

The backend of a careers page should be built on an applicant tracking system (ATS) to help teams recruit, track, and manage job candidates throughout the hiring process. More than anything, a quality ATS (like the one included in BerniePortal) helps streamline every component of recruitment. Less time sorting through applications and emails and more time fine-tuning job listings and more. Additionally, relying on an ATS eliminates the need for applicant account creation. Not only does this additional step create added friction, but it could be the reason why a job candidate decides not to apply. When organizations use an ATS, they’re already collecting all of the important information needed to follow up with an applicant so that they can save teams and candidates the trouble in advance.

What to Include in a Careers Page

Every organization’s careers page will look different depending on the industry and the organization. However, here are a few things to include:

Open Positions: This may seem obvious, but an organization’s career page should have a list of open positions with a brief description of each role. Be sure that the position is up-to-date, and remove any old positions that are already filled.
A Section on Who the Organization is Looking For: This section will explain the kind of team members your organization is looking for and your organization’s core values, like mutual respect and teamwork. This doesn’t include specifics about the types of skills or experience that candidates have, because it’s not really necessary on this portion of the careers page. Instead, communicate what it means to be an employee and a part of the culture at your organization.
Photos of the Organization: Including photos of the office space, company outings, and other snapshots help potential applicants envision whether or not they could see themselves at your organization. Have a few photos on your careers page to communicate your organization’s culture, or link to your company’s Instagram page if you have one.
Workplace Awards and Recognition: Communicate any reasons why potential candidates would want to work for the organization. For example, does your organization rank as a top-tier employer in your city? Has your organization won any awards or honors as a best place to work?