I had a client ask me the other day if they should invest in an Employer Brand Profile Page on one of the job sites they use. I thought this was a good question considering more and more job sites are promoting that companies must have an Employer Brand Profile page on their site if they want to truly compete for quality talent. Their logic is job seekers want information readily available so they can decide if your opportunity and your company is the right choice for them. The less clicks a job seeker takes to gain relevant information about your organization, the higher the engagement and the higher conversions from the job site. This is true but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to invest in an Employer Brand Profile Page.
Anyone in recruiting knows the path of a job seeker is not simply searching for a job, viewing the job and then applying for the job. Once job seekers have an interest in your job opening, most turn into private investigators and scour the internet for information about you. They want to know what others think about your Company, your Employer Brand and what it’s like to work at your organization. They will research using many different sites but you can be guaranteed they will be looking at your career site.
Investing in an Employer Brand Profile page may be necessary, especially if your key competitors have an impressive page and you don’t. Look at the job sites where you currently have an Employer Brand Profile page and analyze the job sites traffic to your jobs, the conversions and hires you have made from the site. Now look at the data on the other job sites where you don’t have an Employer Brand Profile and compare the two. Do the job sites with no Employer Brand Profile page have a lower conversion and lower hires? If they do have low conversions and hires, it’s important to assess why? Look at the job description – is it engaging? Look at the company overview – does it tell your unique story and is it purposeful? Look at your employer value proposition – does it align to the persona of your target audience? There could be many reasons why there are low conversions and hires from these sites but it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to invest in an Employer Brand Profile page. In fact, increasing the quality of conversions can often be easily achieved through no or lower cost tactics. Just be aware as you assess these low conversions and low hire sites that you don’t rule them out without diving deeper. They may be playing a critical role on influencing applications on your jobs but they’re just not getting the credit in your source metrics.
If you have limited budget, I recommend you consider investing in yourself first. Improving your career site and social media properties should be top priority if you are serious about competing for top talent. Why? Because as I said earlier, you can be guaranteed that anyone interested in your job opportunities will be looking at your career site and social channels. Potential candidates will be viewing your career site to assess if you make the cut as a future employer. Before you invest in another Employer Brand Profile page, just pause. Analyze your metrics or at minimum conduct an audit of the site and don’t forget to compare to your talent competitors. Just remember, all candidates interested in your job opportunities will come to your career site at some point regardless of where they saw your Ad or where they heard about the job. Before investing more in recruiting channels, just make sure your house (career site) is in order and ready to welcome your guests so they come on in or they come back for a future visit.
If you’re uncertain your recruitment channel investments are getting the highest return possible or you want to improve your career site to engage more quality candidates, give me a call or send me an email. I’m happy to chat and discuss how I can help.
Written and published by Colette O’Neill