An introduction to Careers Sites for employers

Creating a careers site, careers area, or careers zone is often cited as the first and best step that any organization can make in using the internet to recruit. But what is a careers site and what part can it play in online recruitment?

What is a Careers Site?

A Careers Site is known by lots of different terms: Careers Zone, Careers Area, Careers Page, Work for Us, We’re Hiring etc. But basically a Careers Site is a dedicated area on your company website where people can find out about career opportunities in your company. A Careers Site offers employers of every size a useful way to engage with potential employees and a single manageable area through which to channel recruitment activity.

When thinking about what you need in a careers site, for example, it is also worth considering that the careers area is sometimes 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 wider marketing strategy.

Careers Sites as part of a recruitment strategy

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 and simply list live vacancies. The kind of Career Site you have or choose to have will depend fundamentally on your ongoing recruitment needs and, of course, your available resources.

While Careers Sites are valuable recruitment tools and key recruitment branding channels they should not be relied upon as your sole online recruitment channel. The truth of the matter is that while people may come to you site directly, the vast majority are coming to find out about your company and not about your jobs. That someone might happen to visit your Careers Site because they happen to be visiting your website is not a good recruiting strategy.

Rather Careers Sites can only one part of your recruitment advertising strategy. If you have vacancies be sure to promote them in the usual way via job boards, Facebook, Twitter and whatever referral programmes you may be running.

Next steps? Check out these other guides and articles:

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Careers Sites
• An introduction to Psychometric Testing & Assessment
• An Introduction to Recruitment Branding
• An introduction to Referral Recruiting
• Search Engine Marketing for Recruitment
• Ten tips for a great careers site for employers
• Ten tips for choosing an applicant tracking system