A Careers Page may not be on top of your list when you start planning a website. But, it is one of the critical pages of your website. Brands and designers often overlook the importance of this page and park it for the second or third stages of development. With time, it slowly fades out, and all we are left with is a generic careers page. Your careers page is the best place to attract new talent and thus needs a lot of attention.

The careers page should be visually appealing, engaging, and attractive enough to draw potential applicants. It should give out useful information to applicants and navigate them smoothly through the application process. That said, you must also be cautious of not overdosing them with information. The careers page should not look cluttered, and must not confuse applicants. The process of applying for a job on a websites’ career page is typical and is followed by almost all candidates. It’s essential to create an impact on applicants and simplifying the user experience of this page.

The first step to designing a careers page is to define its purpose. To identify the key objective of developing this page, you must ask a few questions:

• Why are you creating this page?
• Who is the target audience?
• What do the candidates need and how to satisfy those needs?
• What does your company need?

While targeting the needs of candidates and your company, always give preference to candidates, or in other words, your target audience. If you can help candidates in performing their tasks smoothly, you will, in turn, attract the best talent for your company. 

Candidates coming to your careers page can be broadly classified into two categories:

• The ones who already know you
• The ones who don’t know you

The needs of both would be different. The ones who don’t know you would like to learn about the company, its work culture, types of jobs available, etc. They would analyze the information provided on the page and will consider that to take a decision on whether they want to apply for an open position or not. They may have some questions too, for which they would contact you. On the other hand, people who already know your company will straight away look for the available jobs and apply for a suitable position. Your careers page must address both the groups.

Your careers page must also ensure that your HR team is happy. They should be able to segregate between good and not so good candidates easily. Through your careers page, you want to hire the best talent, turn off candidates who are not the best fit and market your company as a great place to work.

Best Practices

Use Rich Content

Content is often misinterpreted as text, and by that logic rich content translates to a lot of content. That’s not the case. Content is a mix of text, infographics, pictures, videos and more. Rich content means content that answers the most important questions of candidates. Candidates will have a variety of questions in their mind. The key is to figure out which are the key questions that should be answered and what is the best way of presenting your answers. These days, a lot of companies publish blog posts on their careers sections. The blog posts work as proof of your claim – we are the best company to work with.

Include Photos and Graphics

Don’t just use huge text blocks on the careers page and make the user read forever. It’s best to break the text into small chunks and include photos, graphics to support the text. Show original pictures of your employees working in roles similar to current openings. It enhances the credibility of your company and helps users to understand what it is like to work in a particular role in your company. Photos improve your careers page design and display your company culture. A lot of candidates look at people and culture fit when considering prospective employers.

Be Accessible

Most of the companies place the careers section on their primary menu. It’s either next to the about us section or within it. There’s a link to the career section in the footer too. People are used to locating the careers section at these places and expect them to be there. By following the industry norms you will simplify the user experience; users expect the carers section to be at these places. Don’t hide the careers page deep into other sections, or you risk losing candidates. 

Read more about simplifying and improving user experience here

Create a Mobile-Friendly Careers Page

Your potential candidates are all using mobile phones. According to a study, nearly 45 percent of job seekers use mobile devices to search for jobs. Optimize your website for various screen sizes, by using a responsive design, to offer a smooth, consistent experience. If your site is easy to use on mobiles, you’re increasing your reach to the potential applicants and encouraging the best candidates to apply from any device. 

Simplify The Application Process

The best candidates will not waste their time and energy going through a tedious, unclear application process. If your application process is not user-friendly, there’s a risk that suitable candidates will bounce off in between the process. Offer a smooth and fast application process by using auto-filled forms, CV imports, an option to save, and a friendly language throughout the process. It’s simple, why will they crack their brains when they can simply apply by exporting their Linkedin profiles at other places. 

Include Testimonials

Applicants love to hear about the company, work culture, and first-hand experiences from current employees. A message from someone currently working for you will create more impact than a generic job description. Employees can share their experiences by writing a small quote, supported by a picture, or they can feature in a short video. They can talk about their job responsibilities, current projects, work-life balance, how working in your organization is different, and a lot more.

To Wrap It Up

These tips will allow you to start designing your careers page. You can cover all the essentials of a useful, effective careers page by following these tips. The page can be periodically reviewed for modifications to stay updated and relevant. If you want to develop or re-design the careers page in the correct way, you can speak to our experts.