Saturday, 27 August 2011

Careers Page The Essential Guide to a Solid Corporate Recruiting Portal

Careers page-¦what kind of imagery do those words bring to mind. The obvious answer is a customized job board connected to your corporate website; a listing of open positions and requirements for each job opening at your company so to speak. The big picture is clear, and most people have a firm grasp on what role a corporate careers page plays in the recruiting picture. But what about the details? For example, how do you create a corporate careers page? What type of features do you need to achieve the best results (ie hiring quality people)? How much is it going to cost? This guide will provide a breakdown of the essential features and considerations for setting up an effective careers page.

Customization

One of the defining characteristics of a careers page is corporate branding. General Job board sites are intended to be brand neutral. A careers page should reflect your brand and be seamlessly integrated into your corporate website. A number of different candidate stereotypes exist in the world of recruiting. From the tire kickers to the rock stars, recruiters generally have a different strategy and approach for each candidate. Ultimately it comes down to finding a highly qualified and highly motivated candidate for the position. Motivation is a big factor. A well designed corporate careers page offers a point of action as close to your brand as possible. While some prospects are looking for any job and others are being enticed out of their current position, a subset of candidates exist who are both highly qualified and genuinely interested in working for your company. I like to call these candidates “champions”. An integrated, fully branded corporate careers page is integral to targeting the champion candidates out in the work force.

Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance

It sounds like a mouthful, but compliance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s regulations is definitely something to chew on. Under the Obama administration the EEOC has seen a major boost in both funding and man power. The bottom line is, starting now, the EEOC means business. While the majority of companies have sincere intentions to comply with all EEO regulations, tracking your corporate compliance can be the most difficult step in the process. When designing your careers page or selecting a technology to run the careers page listings, always consider the technological requirements to automate the EEO compliance process. Some systems provide point of contact questionnaires to automatically capture required EEO records and include push button reporting features in the case of an audit.

Communication is Key

At all costs, avoid creating a black hole. It used to be the case that creating a careers page only required a person close to HR who could update an HTML page. Generally, these “careers pages” would provide either an email address or a contact form. In both cases, the information was sent out to an inbox, a folder or a nebulous void, where “someone” was supposed to keep an eye on things. Needless to say, the ball was bound to get dropped. The old way of doing things provided little in the way of accountability. A modern careers page should be designed with communication, collaboration and accountability in mind. At this point most companies serious about corporate job listings have adopted an applicant tracking system that can power their careers page and maximize accountability across corporate recruiters and hiring managers.

Ease of Use

Adopting a more technologically advanced careers page should not cause a headache for your recruiters. Ultimately you want a system that offers a mix of sophistication and simplicity. Many times software providers will pack in as many features as possible to give their sales people talking points. A wealth of features does not necessarily make for an elegant, easy to use product. When shopping for backend software to run your careers page and manage your corporate recruiting, always ask yourself, “does this system provide the critical features I need and can I learn how to fully use it in less than a day?” A learning curve should not be part of the process when it comes to upgrading your corporate careers page.

Consider your corporate careers page your company’s face to prospective employees. A minor investment can go a long way toward finding dedicated people to help take your company into the future. Keep things simple and remember to weigh the most critical features first.

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