10 Mistakes You're Making on Your Careers Page

Many companies mistakenly scare potential employees away by making the following ten mistakes. 

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1. You don't have a careers page

Nowadays there is a multitude of avenues you can go down to advertise a job but the main street is still your careers page. No matter where else you might be advertising your role, potential applicants will always visit your website to find out more about who you are and the role you are advertising. If you don't have a careers page there is no doubt you're missing out on candidates.  

2. There are expired adverts

Not only do out of date listings give the impression that your company doesn't have it together, it's also a nuisance for both you as an employer and anyone trying to apply.

Candidates will get frustrated with your company once they find out that the application they spent time perfecting was for nothing and are unlikely to take that risk again with another role on your website. Plus, your recruiters are going to have an even more difficult time having to sieve through irrelevant CVs for closed roles.

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3. Your careers page doesn't show what you "do"

Your careers page should be a dynamic content piece showing who you are and how each individual role is important in helping you grow. Most career pages are just a list of roles and nothing else. Potential applicants want to know about your history, brand and values. To successfully engage these people it's a good idea to add in photos and videos of employees, the work space and what general day-to-day life is like working there.

4. It's not easily found

This is just as frustrating for the user as not having a careers page at all. There's no reason for your careers page to be ten clicks deep into your website. Change your navigation so the user path to the careers page is 3 clicks at most.

5. The adverts aren't engaging

Your job descriptions are like a window into your company. Trying to portray what life working at your company is like can be tough. Try delegating tasks like these to somebody on your marketing team who might be more able to put a creative spin on the job description.

6. You're looking for a "Disruptive & Strategic Wizard Rockstar"

We all want to be "down with the kids" but when it comes to job descriptions it can come across as insincere and silly to some potential candidates.

Using buzzwords in your job title and description can be confusing to some so be as clear (and not down with the kids) as possible when describing your role to avoid losing potential star candidates. 

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7. You've listed unnecessary requirements

We've all read job descriptions and thought "I am definitely not who they're looking for" or "I am not qualified for this role". Sometimes we are right but a lot of the time it's because the requirements listed aren't absolute and we could have applied whether we had them or not. If your job requirements lists anything more than the essentials you're driving applicants away. 

For anything else that you'd like to add but can't be fully explained in a short sentence leave it out and it can be discussed at a later stage.

8. There's an application black hole

Once somebody has applied to an open role through your website where does it go? It's hard not to get caught up in applications coming from many different sources. Be sure that the applications coming through your website are not going to a dead end email address. Candidates who have applied this way are usually more engaged with your brand and mission, don't leave them behind. 

If you are having trouble keeping track of emails coming from your careers page ATS software like ours can help simplify this process and you'll never miss a quality candidate again.

9. There's no clear user path

This might seem obvious but check that the application processes to your roles are clear and seamless. If an applicant isn't sure how they are supposed to apply, chances are they're going to get frustrated and leave, never to be seen again.  Not only is having a clear path for application important for the applicant but it avoids disarray on the HR side of things too.  

If you need help creating a clear application process, an ATS like Occupop can provide this service and have all the applications come into the one central system.

10. There's too much "extra content"

Videos and photos displaying everyday life is a excellent for branding and educating potential candidates, but that shouldn't be the entire focus of the page. The purpose of the page is to convert viewers to applicants and they can't do this if you haven't given them clear direction. Have your careers page visually pleasing and reflective of your culture but make the process of applying for a role obvious. Have a clear CTA that isn't lost in an abundance of photos of your employees on bean bags drinking iced frappés.

A compelling and informative careers page may be the factor that helps you to recruit the top talent in your industry. In fact, 19% of all hires come from careers pages, which is more than any other recruitment channel, according to Deloitte’s 2015 Talent Acquisition research.

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This means that perfecting your careers page is an essential step in the recruitment process, and Occupop is here to help! Our recruitment software saves you 4-5 hours a week and 78% of recruitment costs on the busy work of hiring, so you can allocate more of your energy to creating an amazing careers page. We also easily integrate with your careers page and offer one-click posting to help you streamline your job advertisements, helping you create a page that others will want to copy.

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