9 Careers Page Best Practices to Attract More of the RIGHT Candidates

Your careers page can help you attract passionate, qualified candidates that share your values. But if you’re not framing your business and the positions in the right light, it can also hinder your recruitment process. 

Maybe you’ve received an influx of applicants who were clearly not fit for a job posting. Or maybe you’ve found it hard to get enough applicants in the first place.  

By incorporating careers page best practices, your website can do some serious heavy lifting when it comes to recruitment. As a result, you get more of the right candidates, helping you hire the best people possible. 

Why do you need a careers page?

To put it simply, because that’s where the job searchers go!  A study by The Talent Board found careers pages are the top place people go to research a company they’re considering working for.

Candidates may initially find your posting on a job search site like LinkedIn or Indeed. But, from there, you can link to your own website’s career page. By making yours clear and compelling, you’re a step ahead of organizations with generic listings. 

On the other hand, some candidates will already know about your organization and may have you in mind as a potential place to work. So when it’s time for them to scope out jobs, they will almost always land them on your website—specifically your careers page. When that happens, you better make sure that page does its job!

Here are 9 careers page best practices to attract more of the RIGHT candidates.

• Use a simple application process

When it comes to the initial application, it’s all about balance. You want to collect enough information from the applicant without making it so treacherous that you repel potentially strong candidates. 

If you’re incorporating a form, don’t use too many fields. Of course, you need enough information to screen people and get some initial insight into their skills, but keep it streamlined. Ask yourself if each field is truly necessary at this stage. 

• Make your job search function super user-friendly 

If you have many job postings, help candidates find the ones most relevant to them. Can you add filters so candidates can search by location, department, or qualifications? 

Within the job postings themselves, you can also provide insight into where that role fits into your organization’s bigger picture. Why is it important on the micro and macro level? Who will this person collaborate with? Try to paint a picture of what the day-to-day looks like. This helps candidates identify whether or not it’s a fit for them. 

• Embrace your company’s mission vision and values

Your careers page is not just meant to find candidates that fit job descriptions. It should also help you find people that mesh well with your company’s culture and values. 

These are the things that drive everything your organization does, from the way you treat your employees, to the services or products you sell, to the way you communicate in your marketing. If you want to attract candidates that align with these values, keep them clear and consistent across your careers page.

This is incredibly important for a couple of reasons:

1. 1.  You want people who believe in the same things as your organization. This ensures your values are consistently upheld in your work. 
   2. When people are passionate about their work and the values of their employer, their performance improves—greatly.

We recommend putting an “About Us” at the top of your careers page. This section should sum up what exactly your organization does, why you do it, and who the people are behind the business. 

•  Showcase your company culture

Company culture is a huge factor in attracting and retaining quality candidates. Because, the fact is, there’s more to a job than the day to day duties. Many candidates want to find positions that add to their quality of life by providing community, bonding, and fun.

Be honest about your company culture and highlight aspects that your ideal candidates would want to see. This can be photos and videos from office outings, round-ups of recent company events, and a mission statement that summarizes your company’s goal for fostering a healthy culture. 

We also recommend adding a “give back” section where you can talk about all the things you’re doing to give back to your community. Candidates like to see you care about the big picture!

• Highlight benefits and perks

This is a biggie for encouraging applications. Your ideal candidates want to know what’s in it for them too (besides a paycheck). So let them know how you take care of your team. 

You can include information on perks like:

1. • Health benefits 
   • Fitness and lifestyle perks 
   • Tuition reimbursement
   • Sponsored holidays
   • Vacation time
   • Charitable donation matching

• Strut your stuff with employee testimonials

Social proof is fantastic for inspiring applicants. People want to know if other people have enjoyed working with you! If you’ve received any employer awards, definitely include those. But, if not, you can show your rating from places like GlassDoor, or ask existing/past employees to write your organization a testimonial to use in your marketing.

Ask them:

• • Why they wanted to work for your organization
  • What they got out of working for you
  • What the best part about working for you is

• Leverage the power of branded and mobile-optimized design

Just as you want to appeal to the right people with strong brand messaging, you can also use design and visual branding to attract your target candidates. 

Consider if your visual branding is reflected on your careers page. Can you add graphics, photos, or video elements to improve the look and feel?

And, as always, make sure the design is easy to navigate and optimized for mobile. A GlassDoor survey found 60% of job seekers want to save job postings on their phone, so make sure they’re able to. You don’t want to lose out on strong candidates just because your web page was broken. 

• Keep it updated and current

All too often, we see businesses let their careers pages go out of date. If you want to receive applications from the best candidates, they need the most up to date information!

Stay on top of your postings, respond to reviews, and update pictures and videos so your company looks engaged. You can also maintain a company news page so it’s easy for candidates to find exciting initiatives, milestones, or awards your organization has been involved in.

• Make sure it’s easy to find! 

Lastly, don’t make people work hard to find your careers page. We recommend either putting your careers page in your top navigation bar or clearly in your bottom navigation. Candidates should be able to find it in one click from your website—don’t make them go hunting for it. 

Need to update your careers page?

We get it. Designing a careers page that does all this isn’t exactly a piece of cake! If you need help, we can get you there. We offer website updates and design services to make sure your careers page is user friendly, beautiful, and optimized to attract your ideal candidates. 

Get in touch to chat about your project needs.