Using employer websites to attract new recruits

Corporate careers sites are playing an increasingly key role in employers' recruitment strategies, our research shows.

The internet has changed the face of recruitment advertising over the past few years, although predictions that online channels would replace the more traditional routes to market, such as press advertising, have not been realised.

The transformation is more one of diversification in recruitment techniques. Organisations now have at their disposal a much greater choice of tools to attract and screen candidates. One of the main ways in which organisations have been making the most of this multi-channel environment is by developing their own corporate websites to recruit people.

The latest large-scale resourcing survey undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)¹ found that two-thirds of employers use their own website to attract applicants, making it the third most popular recruitment method.

IRS's own research² into the online recruitment habits of the FTSE 100 companies provides further evidence of the importance of corporate websites. Two-thirds of these employers have now developed their own dedicated careers website, in many cases forming a central part of their overall recruitment strategy.

This article examines the key developments in the use of corporate websites for recruitment purposes, and canvasses expert opinion on how employers can make the best use of their own careers site.

The recruitment gateway

If a corporate careers site is designed to full effect, and is part of a cohesive overall resourcing strategy, it can act as the organisation's main recruitment gateway. Thus, the organisation can optimise its employer branding messages and maintain direct control over the application stage.

"A corporate site should be the main recruitment hub for a company, and most jobseekers expect to be able to go to a web address, regardless of where they have picked up on the opening," says Alex Hens, head of interactive at recruitment marketing consultancy Thirty Three. "But many employers build a site in the belief that it will fulfil their recruitment dreams, without developing a proper marketing strategy that signposts the right traffic to it."

The extent to which an employer uses web technology to aid recruitment varies considerably. In a more restrained approach, some organisations may use it to enhance the hiring process, for example, by listing vacancies on their main corporate site and uploading other employment-related information.

At the other end of the spectrum, a hyperlink from the main corporate site can lead to a dedicated careers site that acts as the core focus of the employer's resourcing strategy, with all recruitment traffic driven towards it. These dedicated recruitment sites are typically fully branded and offer a range of information for jobseekers, such as the employment opportunities on offer, a profile of the organisation and case studies of current employees.

Some employers may even take this approach a step further by operating specific recruitment sites targeted at different pools of potential candidates. A common approach, particularly for larger organisations, is to build a general job site and one targeted at graduates. For example, financial services company Barclays has a hyperlink from its main corporate site to a careers site and, from there, another link to a micro site targeted at graduates.

Although both job boards and corporate websites are still viewed primarily as fulfilling an online attraction role, some organisations are starting to invest in more advanced technological tools to streamline the recruitment process. For example, some careers sites require applicants to create a job profile that is added to a talent database, to be mined for possible matches to future vacancies. Other employers, typically with the help of a specialist online provider, have developed cutting-edge self-selection and screening tools.

Commercial or corporate?

Building a corporate recruitment site represents one of the two main online avenues available to employers wishing to attract initial interest from jobseekers. The other option is to advertise vacancies on a commercial job board. There are many generalist and specialist sites on offer, such as Monster, executivesontheweb.com, jobsgopublic.com and our parent company's totaljobs.com. Some sites are geared towards certain sections of the labour market (IT or accountancy roles, for example), while others cater for a specific sector.

In addition to advertising vacant posts on behalf of employers - usually for a fee - to attract job applicants, many commercial sites offer a range of other services, including candidate management and sifting systems.

Deciding whether to opt for a commercial or corporate site need not be a mutually exclusive decision. The latest IRS graduate survey³, for example, found that almost half (46.7%) of online recruiters operate a corporate site and also use one or more job boards as part of their online attraction strategy. Only one-third (35%) rely solely on a corporate site, while a mere 5.8% use a job board to the exclusion of their own site.

The online recruitment strategy of some employers is a symbiotic one, with the one type of online channel playing a complementary role to the other. A fairly common approach is to use a commercial job board - and other, offline, media - to direct potential applicants to the employer's own site or "gateway" as described earlier.

Totaljobs.com is one of the UK's largest commercial recruitment sites and runs a seminar programme on how to develop an online recruitment strategy. According to Paul Stephens, its website director, many organisations build an impressive recruitment website but this is not enough in itself. He comments: "Think of the corporate site as the engine of recruitment, but where is the fuel, ie the potential candidates that meet the vacancy criteria? Commercial job boards can perform a range of functions to help generate the flow of applicants to the employer's site in what is a very fluid market."

For example, as well as banner advertising and "click-throughs" from a commercial site to the corporate site, Stephens says that a job board has many ways of tapping into different potential candidate pools. These include matching vacancy criteria to jobseeker profiles available on the job board's extensive databases, email alerts, job postings and key word sponsorships. This latter function involves the job board delivering the employer's site as a premium brand when a jobseeker types in a relevant job search.

Their design…

"The crucial first steps are to understand the client, their requirements and, from that information, the target audience," Hens advises. "It's simple best advertising practice - but, unfortunately, many companies get carried away with the medium or, worse, simply don't understand it."

According to Stephens, the design of a corporate site is pivotal to its success and, if undertaken correctly, will provide the recruiting organisation with a competitive advantage.

"Too often, an employer's careers site is an afterthought or an 'add on' to the consumer site, but to be effective the recruitment site should have a clear focus and resources dedicated to its development and operation," he says. "Employers should remember that jobseekers are also consumers and all visitors to the site should be treated with respect."

Stephens highlights several golden design principles such as "keep it simple" and refrain from asking jobseekers to log in or register, as people want the freedom to browse. Ease of use and access is paramount.

Hens believes that the employer brand should play a key role in the design of a corporate recruitment site. He comments: "Too often, the careers section or site is hidden in the corporate website, but the desired employer brand is not always aligned with the consumer brand. The organisation's consumer or corporate face could be one element of the attraction strategy, but often this is mismatched with the target recruitment audiences. The employer brand can be a very different proposition and should be allowed to focus very clearly on conveying the right information to encourage the right applications."

According to Hens, potential applicants are more likely to identify a positive employer brand if the company ensures that it sends out consistent messages. This includes making its corporate careers site part of an overall recruitment strategy, and checking that all other recruitment marketing material reinforces the same employer profile.

…and functionality

The CIPD's factsheet on online recruitment⁴ says that online technology can be used in three main ways:

Hens says that, while the branding, relevance of content and information architecture are important in contributing to an effective site, it is the site's functionality that is key to its overall success.

As he points out: "Easy access to live jobs and a smooth application process is fundamental. Considering the amount of money that many companies spend on their corporate branding and marketing, it has to be worth investing that bit extra on an efficient and effective candidate management system and a robust recruitment process. A negative candidate experience will transcend the employer brand and will stay with that candidate a lot longer."

Stephens of totaljobs.com says that a corporate site's functional tools, such as a job search, should be simple and easy to use. "A good employer recruitment website should also communicate the organisation's culture, brand values and other company information, for example, by carrying links to its diversity statement," he explains.

To raise their recruitment game, he says that employers could draw lessons from the more savvy approaches used by commercial job boards: for example, maintaining a relationship with passive as well as active jobseekers by sending email alerts if suitable jobs come up. Another option is search engine optimisation, whereby the internet site is structured in such a way that it is listed near the top end of the list of hits when a jobseeker inputs specific job criteria on Google or other such internet search engines.

Target audience

The decision about how closely to embrace the potential that a corporate careers site offers depends on a number of fundamental issues, including the employer's core competences, its market position, available resources and the focus of its recruitment activity.

While corporate websites potentially offer an effective and relatively inexpensive recruitment option compared with the costs of commercial recruitment advertising, this route to market may be less appropriate for some target audiences. For example, the CIPD's recruitment survey mentioned above indicates that less than half (47%) of recruiters use their corporate site to advertise manufacturing and production vacancies.

Conversely, IRS's long-running research series of graduate recruitment practices has identified an employer's corporate site as a preferred method used to attract potential applicants. The most recent survey, cited above, found that 82.2% of graduate recruiters opt for this approach, making it the most popular recruitment tool of all those available to employers.

The target audience will also influence the overall design of the corporate site. For instance, the award-winning careers website designed by Thirty Three for gaming specialist Codemasters was used as part of a highly targeted campaign to attract technical talent, such as games designers. "Employer sites need to be fit for purpose," Hens advises. "We could be very adventurous with this site and incorporate stunning visual features and flash technology, for example, but the design has a very specific role and helps to filter out those not suited to the role."

"Compare this site to the graduate careers one we designed for the Audit Commission, which is also visually striking but is available in both HTML and flash," he continues. "It conveys 'the art of numbers' and challenges the myth that auditing is dull, encouraging prospective candidates to see beyond the figures."

He believes that both sites demonstrate the key principle of putting the candidate experience first and using creativity to enhance rather than hinder the visit, striking an appropriate balance between form and function. (See figures opposite for the homepages of the two recruitment sites.)

There are also important equal opportunities considerations in terms of the potential candidate pool. Even in this rapidly expanding digital age, some sections of the labour market do not necessarily have on-tap internet access, or rank the internet highly as their preferred method for job hunting.

Other jobseekers, such as those with a disability, may be disadvantaged if an employer relies almost exclusively on online channels or has not designed its site to be accessible. Guidelines⁵ drawn up by the World Wide Web Consortium address the design features of websites and the barriers that people in this particular group may face.

Domestic chore

Research into employers' recruitment practices shows that few are brave enough to rely on their corporate site alone to generate enough candidates of the calibre needed. The dominant strategy among users of this potentially powerful online tool is one of maximising the effectiveness of the recruitment process by making best use of the growing variety of available methods. In other words, online recruitment remains dependent on the support of other media for its success. Few recruiters work for organisations that are so attractive to jobseekers that they will seek them out without some form of prompting or encouragement.

Hens says that a corporate careers site is never finished. "A website is a living and breathing entity, and needs to be constantly reviewed and refreshed," he advises. "An employer's recruitment needs might change, for example. To get the best out of their corporate careers site, employers need to use the available technology, such as content management systems, to maximise the site's impact and keep it up to date and relevant."

¹Recruitment, retention and turnover: annual survey report 2005, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2005, www.cipd.co.uk .

²Log on, log in: corporate online recruitment in the FTSE 100 , IRS Employment Review 829.

³Graduate recruitment 2005/06: confidence climbs , IRS Employment Review 834.

⁴"Online recruitment", Factsheets, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2005, www.cipd.co.uk .

⁵Available free from www.w3.org .