We have identified some of the best career pages out there that we think show a clear understanding of their target audience and reach out to them in the most effective way.
Good design, usability, a job search function, and a benefits/perks section were the minimum entry level for consideration.
To find our top ten, we paid special attention to those with a striking brand message and who are making use of video narratives, case studies, and real employee ambassadors to tell the brand story in the most authentic and compelling way.
It is these careers pages that are optimising their connection with the candidate marketplace and promising the greatest return on investment. So, in no particular order, we gathered a list of the top 10 career pages we found online, that can serve as an inspiration when you’re building your own careers page.
Being such a respected brand, Deloitte could easily have continued with status-quo marketing, and the applications would probably have continued to roll in.
What we love about this career site is that they have dared to challenge the old, stuffy, ‘grey suit’ misconceptions about the professional services industry in their messaging. They have done this by producing a lift-the-lid style, employer branding video titled ‘What surprised our people about Deloitte?’ to widen their reach to a new breed of talent. It blows off the cobwebs and depicts a fresher, vibrant, more down-to-earth company than many might imagine.
They evidence their commitment to diversity and inclusion with impactful case studies of a diverse range of real employee ambassadors that offer genuine authenticity. The wider employer brand story is comprehensively evidenced through a montage of first-person video stories, and messages from a broad range of employee ambassadors.
It provides deep and believable insight into the vibrancy and possibilities of a career at Deloitte, and we love this.
This company was just named the number one place to work in the world and so the careers page warranted a look and thankfully did not disappoint. We love the fact that this first generation, technology giant, leads with a very grounded, first-person, intimate, and uplifting story with ‘Stephen the Software Engineer’, and how he fulfilled his dream of joining Cisco. It’s inspiring too and makes a powerful emotional connection with its audience showing that you can achieve big things at Cisco no matter where you start.
Again, they challenge the misconception of uniformity that might surround a first-generation engineering organisation with a ‘Don’t follow the herd: Be You, With Us’ video brand story depicting a noticeably diverse range of employee ambassadors.
Hospitality is facing chronic talent shortages, so we wanted to showcase some of the best career pages from this sector. Marriot’s careers page immediately welcomes its international audience with a multi-language website and builds that emotional connection again with an attractive front-page carousel showing images of inspirational properties and employees.
We love the ‘Be Bold Be You’ slogan and philosophy which again brings an emphasis on individuality as a call to diversity in all forms. Underneath this, there is an inspirational statement about building a career and an adjacent and inspiring video story showcasing employees doing just this.
Hospitality has been struggling with perceptions of being a career dead-end and we love how Marriot is addressing this head-on.
INSERT-CTA
Hilton has gone for a more encyclopaedic, multi-page career site rather than the punchy careers page option. The upside of this is that you come away feeling extremely informed about the Hilton offering and with a strong belief that there is a career path for just about anybody at Hilton. We think this refreshingly inclusive tone connects well with their target market.
With their ‘Career Paths – Work You’ll Love’ brand message they seek to squash the outdated image of hospitality being a dead-end job to attract long-term potential.
Again, Hilton features employees’ ambassador stories, told through personalised mini-bios and image carousels/videos which demonstrate how engaged Hilton Employees seem to be and that Hilton is an inclusive place where you can be your ‘authentic self.
The careers page highlights the capacity for home working at Hilton which is a very desirable offering in the hospitality space now, and we love this.
We know that the supply chain sector has been facing significant hiring problems and so we wanted to feature a good example from this industry. This is a sector that has historically not been great at attracting women and younger people. We love the fact that Wincanton’s careers page tackles this head-on with a well-produced employer branding video featuring employee testimonials which sets a positive and proactive tone around diversity (especially gender diversity) and inclusion.
There is a strong emphasis on careers and training and development and the recruitment and support of female drivers and younger people, (via the Wincanton Future Drivers Programme).
These themes are reflected throughout the careers site and are well evidenced. You can tell it’s not lip service. This is a great careers page that addresses the specific challenges of its industry and speaks well to its target audience.
As another sector with well-recognized hiring issues, the UHBW NHS Trust has again addressed the working challenges of the sector head-on. The NHS has struggled to attract talent to the regions and the UHBW NHS Trust headline ‘Love Life, Love Bristol, and Weston’ theme pitch the area as a great relocation destination. Just below the subheading, ‘we are the largest teaching Trust in the Southwest of England’ is an inward regional call to the ambitious.
It’s a slick, graphical, user interface with an inspirational and honest brand video full of snippets of real employees in real NHS care scenarios.
We love the fact that the NHS flexible working challenge is addressed head-on as they specifically promote the flexible staff bank on the front page. They know their market and are targeting them well.
NHS is a strong enough employer brand to go with a status-quo careers page. However, we love the fact that they have innovated to appeal to the changing marketplace which now includes NHS first-timers. This careers page includes a carefully constructed campaign to educate and onboard the NHS layperson: the first menu on the headline navigation called ‘working in health’ is about educating the first-timer about careers in the NHS. It includes real-life stories, a signature NHS branding video, FAQS, a fun career quiz, and a career planning section identifying transferable skills.
More than ever, the NHS needs to speak to the masses and draw them into the NHS at every stage of the working life cycle and this careers website does it well.
Having just broken into the Big 4 Supermarkets in the UK, the rapidly growing Aldi had to be doing something right with its recruitment and their career page reflects this. It’s not as glossy as some of the mainstream retailers but totally appropriate to the roll-up-your-sleeves candour necessitated by its challenger brand status.
There is a directness to the signature employee branding carousel depicting employee ambassadors with a short quote giving a specific reason why they chose Aldi. The overwhelming reason for joining and staying is the desire for a challenge. Aldi knows that as a challenger brand they can’t afford ‘passengers’ they need driven and ambitious employees, and they target this market well through their career website.
Next is one of the biggest retailers in the UK but manages to hold on to that sense of entrepreneurship. They encapsulate this all under the slogan and theme, ’Let’s Take it On.’ with an accompanying high-energy, hip signature employer branding video. The graduate portal reflects this ‘Let’s Take it on’ theme too.
Next know they need driven, creative, open-minded people to fuel their agenda and their careers portal reaches out to these people well. They pitch their diversity and inclusion agenda well and interestingly they make a point of advertising their vacancies on workingdads and workingmums (flexible jobs portals), which again shows that Next is meeting the need for flexible working in the retail sector, and we love this.
With the working world going remote we wanted to show an example of one of the best careers pages from a next-gen, fully remote employer, like Doist. This company knows that money aside, flexible working is the most important motivator for digital staff and Doist’s career page perfectly evidences their fluency in this area. The careers page is concise and shows that the employer’s philosophy is in tune with the digital workforce zeitgeist.
We love the fact that this career page emphasises how much they embrace sustainable remote working practices, such as working from anywhere, and designing your own schedule, balanced with optional co-working spaces, and in-person collaborative retreats.
Web site traffic data confirms that careers pages still have an important role to play in convincing candidates to join an organisation. The most effective careers pages are designed to appeal to a well-defined target market and tend to encapsulate the employer’s call to the market in a punchy brand slogan. They deliver their employer brand story with an authentic narrative tone by expertly channeling the experiences of a diverse range of employee ambassadors. Executed right this approach can generate a career page with an irresistible employer brand positioning that is perfectly attuned to the modern marketplace.
INSERT-LINE
Building an effective careers page: The Checklist
