One of the most important hiring tools you have at your disposal is your organization’s website. If your applicants don’t find your job postings directly through your website, they’ll discover your organization on other online hiring platforms that link back to postings on your site.
To attract a strong group of applicants and streamline your hiring process, ensure your organization’s website is engaging and easy to use. Here are four tips to help you effectively promote job applications on your website:
- Check your website’s usability for applicants.
- Write web-friendly job postings.
- Brand your job application pages.
- Be transparent about your organization’s professional offerings.
For hiring and HR professionals, it likely comes as no surprise that the job market and application process are constantly evolving. Amid economic shifts, a new generation entering the workforce, and the continued prevalence of digital marketing, using your website as a hiring tool will allow you to capitalize on recent trends, optimize the applicant experience, and find the best candidates for the job.
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1. Check your website’s usability for job applicants.
Posting job openings offers the perfect opportunity to refresh your site so it’s as functional as possible for anyone interested in your organization. For instance, featuring intuitive navigation to enhance user experience.
When you post a job opening on your site, test all of the important aspects of your navigation, including these elements:
- Getting from the homepage to the job application page. Especially if you’re doing a big hiring push, you want your job application page front and center. Put it in a noticeable spot in your navigation bar, and maybe add a call to action like, “We’re hiring! View open positions and apply now!” on the homepage that grabs users’ attention and directs them to the application page.
- Viewing all parts of the job listing. Scroll through each listing to ensure you can easily find the full description, qualifications, required application materials, deadline, and links to the application itself. If the page is slow to load, check the site’s backend for any issues.
- Answering any survey questions built into your site. If you’re collecting any information from applicants using survey questions on your site, take the survey yourself to check that the formatting is right on their end and that you can easily see their responses on yours.
- Uploading external files. Try adding a few different file types such as Microsoft Word documents and PDFs to the “Upload a File” spaces in the application to see which ones you can view and download. That way, you can tell applicants exactly which file types to use when they upload their resumes, cover letters, or any other documents.
To create a fully inclusive hiring process, make sure your website is also accessible to everyone. Common ways to increase website accessibility include adding alternative text for images, including closed captions on videos, and ensuring sufficient color contrast between different text and visual elements.
2. Write web-friendly job postings.
Since your job listings are intended to attract the right candidates to your organization and define their potential roles, writing them comes with a unique set of challenges. In addition to those objectives, your postings also need to stand out from similar job ads and hold users’ attention.
These best practices will help make your online job postings more engaging and encourage high-potential individuals to apply:
- Condense the posting down to the essentials. People naturally skim more when they read online. Condense your descriptions to what you think applicants need to know about the role. Additionally, create bulleted sections with titles like “Job Duties,” “Skills,” and “Application Materials,” that applicants can easily skim.
- Use “preferred” instead of “required” wherever possible. Adding too many rigid requirements to your job postings may turn away qualified applicants or cause you to overlook strong candidates who have transferable skills they can apply to a role at your organization. Using the word “required” sparingly allows you to attract a wider range of applicants and open your organization up to candidates with special skills or unique experiences that will help them succeed at your organization.
- Don’t just inform people about your job—persuade them. With the amount of information available online, writing a job listing that candidates will notice is more like writing an advertisement than a description. Instead of just listing information about the position and organization, emphasize why applicants should apply for your role and highlight the unique benefits they’ll receive.
Once you’ve written your job posting, review it carefully before it goes live on your website. Once applicants have gone through the hiring process, consider asking them for feedback on your job postings so you can identify which elements are engaging and where you can rework your descriptions.
3. Brand your job application pages.
Advertising your job openings to applicants isn’t limited to written descriptions. Like in other areas of your organization’s marketing, cohesive branding will help your job postings stand out and draw readers in.
You can successfully brand your job application web pages by focusing on these design aspects:
- Use your organization’s logo, fonts, colors, and overall style. When applicants find one of your job postings, it should immediately look, sound, and feel like something your organization has written and match the rest of your website.
- Spotlight your organization’s goals and calls to action. Add an “About This Organization” section to each job posting so that people can learn what you do at a glance. This section will also reinforce the connection between the posting and the rest of your website. Use a bright or bold color from your brand palette to highlight any calls to action on the page like “Apply Now!” buttons.
- Incorporate photos and videos. Multimedia content can further engage potential applicants and make your postings stand out. For example, you might embed a short video into the previously mentioned “About” section or add some photos of the day-to-day operations at your organization. These visual elements will give applicants a better sense of whether their values and work experience align with your open roles.
In addition to being more noticeable when applicants first come across them, branded job postings will also stick better in applicants’ minds. As a result, they’ll be more likely to return to your organization’s website and follow through with their applications.
4. Be transparent about your organization’s professional offerings.
In the past, many applicants considered their five- or ten-year career plans when they were job hunting. While long-term career planning isn’t dead, younger job seekers often focus more on what they can get out of a role in the near future. Additionally, today’s applicants value transparency in job postings more than ever before.
To appeal to these preferences, include information about each of these areas in your online job postings:
- Company culture and employee perks. Explicitly mention any benefits packages, paid time off, or other advantages in each posting. Also, specify whether each job is in-person, remote, or hybrid so applicants know your expectations. Try to work in other aspects of your company culture, such as employee events, team-building initiatives, or wellness programs, to give applicants a full overview of your organization.
- Professional development. Let applicants know how they could grow professionally at your organization by mentioning any opportunities for ongoing training and development. These may include workshops, seminars, mentorship programs, or tuition reimbursements.
- Organizational values. Since younger applicants are especially concerned about creating societal change, highlighting your organization’s values allows them to see how they could make an impact in the job they’re applying for. For example, explain any corporate social responsibility or employee-giving initiatives your company offers during the application process.
If you can’t fit all these details on a job application page, link to other sections of your website that talk about company culture or corporate social responsibility within the posting. Images and videos can also help to illustrate these aspects transparently.
Your organization’s website is a powerful tool for promoting job applications. An easy-to-use site design, web-friendly and branded job postings, and a sense of transparency will go a long way in streamlining the hiring process for you and your applicants. By adapting these tips to your organization’s unique needs, you’ll set yourself up for hiring success.
