A Career Ste is the feature of your company’s website that is just for job candidates. If your career site is NOT attracting the quality and quantity of candidates you want, you need to read this article. If your company does not currently have a career site as part of your website, you definitely need to keep reading.

The purpose of a well-designed Career Site is to save your company money.

Recruiting is an expensive undertaking. Consider the cost of posting jobs on national and/or local job boards, creating and running classified advertising and paying enormous agency fees. Think about the amount of time your staff spends reviewing unqualified resumes, sorting and coordinating a glut of candidate responses and pre-screening people by phone. Reflect on the waste in dollars, energy and effort when a job remains open for too long because you cannot find an acceptable candidate or, even worse, when you hire someone who does not work out.

A carefully crafted Career Site can cut your recruiting expenses by 50% or more and significantly reduce the time your staff currently invests when you have jobs to fill.
The following are the components that a well-crafted Career Site needs to have:

• Easy Navigation
Candidates want lots of information to make an informed decision about your company and the jobs you have available. It is important that the job seeker can easily find that information on your Career Site.Truly top talent knows that opportunity is always available. If you want to appeal to a higher caliber of candidate, you need to tell an appealing story on your Career Site. Include information about your company and its history (even if that information is available elsewhere), your mission statement and/or vision, your core values, the benefits your company offers and the reasons why people like working for your organization.

Offer employee testimonials as an inducement. Testimonials like this really help you “sell the sizzle” about your company that will intrigue and interest curious job seekers.

It is wise to present the topics you select in a crisp, concise fashion using bullet-points rather than long paragraphs of text that may tend to ramble. Click the link below to display a sample Career Site that contains these elements.

http://abc.talmax.com

• Job Board 
You need a Job Board to display all your open jobs so candidates with an interest in your company will know what positions are currently available. Your Job Board can also list positions that may not be currently active, but if the “right” candidate applied, you would definitely be interested.

Your Job Board should also show information about the job like the job title, job location, job type (employee/temp/intern), job status (full-time/part-time/shift) and the date you posted the position. This limited detail can provide the candidate with a quick overview; however, every job title should be an active link that when clicked, will take the candidate to a complete job description…and more.

• Automatic Feeds to Job Board Aggregators 
If you post a job on your Job Board, your Career Site should provide an automatic feed to job board aggregators like Indeed and Simply Hired. This automatic feed will insure that your job is available for review by candidates who use aggregators as a way to see, at any time, all the positions in which they may have an interest. You can feed your jobs to a major aggregator at no extra charge, saving you both time and unwanted expense.

You should also have automatic feeds to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to take advantage of this highly successful recruiting strategy..

• Job Details that “Sell”
When an applicant clicks on the link to see a full job description, your Career Site needs to display that position in an attractive, easy-to-read format that gives candidates a complete “picture” of the opportunity you have. This should include the duties and responsibilities of the job as well as both the required and desired background and experience a qualified candidate must have.

In addition, you should include information on benefits, relocation assistance (if any) and travel requirements, if travel is part of the job responsibilities.

Consider including compensation in your job description. Candidates today really want to have an idea of the low to high salary range available for the job. If there is a bonus that could be earned or overtime pay, it is wise to let candidates know. Include a range of bonuses and when those bonuses would be paid or a range of overtime income that the person hired for this position could earn per month, quarter or annually.

The more information you provide, the more likely you will be to attract the caliber of candidate you need. Make the job appealing and to save your staff screening time, provide a mechanism that allows the system to filter all the candidates who respond.

• Ability to Apply On-Line
Make it easy on yourself. Your Career Site should include an on-line application form that will collect all the information you need to judge a candidate’s viability for your position. The application should include a list of all the required and desired characteristics detailed in your job description. When the applicant completes the screening questionnaire, the system should automatically weigh each person’s responses and list the results from most to least qualified based on the criteria you set up.

In addition, you should be able to ask pre-interview questions that require text answers to help you further pre-screen each candidate.

Collecting this information as part of an on-line screening component will save you time and prevent you from having to make time-consuming pre-interview phone calls.

• Sign-up for Job Agents
Give each person who comes to your Career Site an easy way to register. Include a sign-up for a Job Search Agent so you can notify applicants of any new job openings or of information about your company that might interest them. (Information such as a new plant/office location, product announcement, etc.).

The link below is a sample of how easily you can incorporate an Agent Sign-Up into your Career Site.
 
http://beacon.talmax.com/

• Easy Updating
It is extremely important to keep the information on your Career Site updated and timely. Once you have installed your Career Site, you should be able to make changes, additions and/or corrections to the data without the assistance of an IT professional.

Easy updating will insure that your Career Site is always fresh. You can easily remove positions that are no longer open, add information, announcements and/or items of interest to job candidates whenever and as often as you wish.

Quality candidates will return to your Career Site if you give them a reason. Bringing good candidates back to your website helps you develop relationships that can help you cut your recruiting costs.
 
• Your Own Candidate Pool
When candidates register on your Career Site, invite them to sign up for your “PTC” (Private Talent Community). Belonging to your PTC gives an applicant the advantage of reviewing any new position that meets their requirements. Communicating with viable candidates through your PTC lets you:
• Supply news and articles about your company and your products/services
• Update information
• Build relationships
• Ask for referrals…and helps you cut both the time to hire and the cost of hiring quality personnel.