Almost every corporate web site these days has a – Careers Page, either as a part of their main navigation menu or some where down on the footer menu. But is the career page on employers website being used effectively and is relevant to their business needs.
Is it just a norm or a nice thing to do, or do employers take the Career page seriously and want it to be an important tool to inform and attract prospective applicants.
If used effectively it could be an important tool for employer branding, as well as supporting talent acquisition.
What do the Career page normally contain ?
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- For most of the companies, the career page would be a static one pager with some information on the company & with an email address like – hr@somecompanyxyz.com or career@somecompanyabc.com.
- For some others, apart from some information on the company and the business, you may see a form to upload your resume and send the same.
- For yet others – the career page, would actually be connected with an online recruitment and job posting tool application in the companies hiring managers/ HR / recruitment team can upload current vacancies and the candidates have a way of searching for jobs and applying to jobs.
- For the more mature ones – the career page – and the associated recruitment application would be well integrated with the company’s HR data base / HRMS.
Based on experience and inputs normally received from job seekers – we have arrived at some of these conclusions.
- The Career page for most companies, is not really leveraged to the desired potential. For most companies – small and big – its just another page with some information.
- The generic e-mail IDs, keep on archiving the resumes sent to them, and acts as a dump yard for resumes. Normally the email id is not monitored unless and until the company is expecting a major rush in applications because of some job advertisement etc.
- Small companies / young start – ups are more likely to hire from the applicants who send their profile through the career pages.
Ideally a Career Page, has to play a key role as an “Employer Branding” platform, as well as a “candidate sourcing platform for vacant positions”.
“Employer Branding” platform , may imply – providing any interested visitor, job seeker with a picture of the company culture, its businesses, its people focus, the value proposition for prospective employees, career growth opportunities etc. In the scenario when talent – right talent – relevant talent is scarce, its important that employers do their bit on employer branding.
“candidate sourcing platform for vacant positions” – Most of the time at least 50 – 70 % of hiring in most companies are done through external consultants, executive search companies. For some niche positions the approach may be right, however for most other positions – bulk – routine positions – employers would save a lot if they are able to post the opportunities on their web site and allow interested applicants to send their profile from there. Benefit to your business – captive candidate pool who have visited your web site, possibly read all about the company and then applied for the positions. You save on your hiring budget and you get candidates who are interested in your company. Of course, there may be lots of junk profiles as well but then there would be relevant ones tool. You just need to put in some thought on planning your hiring strategy to leverage the corporate web site as a important and relevant tool.
What are your thoughts ?
- Have you been able to seek an interview call by sending your profile through the Career page of any company ?
- Does your company / HR monitor the emails received or resumes submitted through the Career pages on your web site ?
- Does your company use the job posting tool / e recruitment tool in an optimum manner?
- Do you think resumes received through Career pages are generally junk ?
Note: Minor updates to post on 6th Aug 2018
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.