Introduction to Company Careers Sites Careers Sites offer employers of every size an effective way to engage with online job seekers while at the same time create a single destination for all recruitment activity. In this introductory article we look at the advantages and disadvantages of employer Careers Sites.

What is a Careers Site?

A Careers Site is a dedicated area on your company website where people can find out about career opportunities in your company. Like websites themselves, Careers Sites come in all shapes and sizes. Some offer all the bells and whistles with recruitment videos, CV uploads, online applications, psychometric tests, newsletters and so on; while others are much more basic offering just a simple listing live vacancies. The kind of Career Site you have or choose to have depends fundamentally on your ongoing recruitment needs and available resources.

When deciding on the resources you direct to your Careers Sites, it is worth bearing in mind that the Careers Site is often the second most visited page on a company website after the Home Page. Therefore, not only can your Careers Site play a central role in your recruitment strategy it can also play a significant part in your overall marketing strategy. 

The Advantages of Careers Sites

1. Fill your job vacancies
   Clearly, your Careers Site can help you find the right people to work in your organization. If the Careers Site is the second most visited page on company websites, then it will be clear that there are many people who are interested in your company and in working for it. A Careers Site is the single most effective way of channelling these people into an active recruitment process.
2. Build a database of passive candidates
   Not everybody who comes to your Careers Site is actively looking for a job; nor, in truth, will they always be suitable for the job vacancies you are advertising. But that's not to say that you should dismiss them. A Careers Site offers you a way of embracing such candidates (“passive candidates” is what they are called in the jargon) so that when the right opportunity comes along you can contact them.
3. Promote your recruitment brand
   The Careers Site offers you one of the most effective ways of expressing and promoting your Recruitment Brand (see our article "An introduction to Recruitment Branding") A huge part of why people work in a company is because they like the company, its people or its culture. With a Careers Site you've got lots of space to talk about your company, your people and your culture. Take advantage of it.
4. Manage your recruitment process
   Your Careers Site can also provide a single place from which to manage all recruitment activity. Whether you are advertising online or offline, you can drive all recruitment activity through this single location. This will help you avoid the duplication of activities and wasting resources. 
5. Save yourself time and money
   There may be some initial resources required to create your Careers Site, but once it's up and running it's not going to cost you anything to keep going and can help to reduce the time and effort spent in recruiting. Advertising your jobs on your own site free, so make sure you get your live vacancies on your site.  

The Disadvantages of Careers Sites

There are, in our view, few disadvantages to having a Careers Site. Indeed, rather than disadvantages we would suggest that most of the following issues can be avoided if you put proper thought into your Careers Site before you build it. 

1. Cost
   Before you begin, you really do have to sit down and think about the kind of Careers Site you require. For example, do you simply require a couple of additional pages on your website so that you can advertise the two or three job vacancies you have every year? Or do you require something more extensive with online videos, an online application system, and a recruitment management back-end? The difference in cost between the former and the latter is large. Think about what you need, what you really need, before you begin to build it.
2. Time
   The last thing you want is a Careers Site that requires so much time and attention that it eats into resources that could better be directed at actually filling jobs. The purpose of the Careers Site is to get the right people working for your company. That is its function. Give it the resources required to fulfil this function, but be sparing beyond this. Again, creating an overly demanding Careers Site can be best avoided by thinking properly about it early on.
3. It won't always work
   Your Careers Site should not be seen as the answer to all your recruitment needs. Even if you are advertising your jobs on your site, you will still have to get your jobs out to a wider audience. Be sure to advertise your jobs on a relevant job board, newspaper, trade magazine etc...

There is, of course, a lot more to be said about Careers Sites. We hope, however, that this introductory article has shown you some of the reasons why as an employer you should consider having at least a basic Careers Site on your corporate website.

Article updated: July 2008

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