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Why investing in a recruitment website is so important

Oliver is a data scientist. This morning, he received a LinkedIn notification about a job opening. As soon as he saw the notification he visited the recruitment website to learn about the company. On the recruitment website page, he saw several colourful stock photos bought online, the usual corporate jargon and information which was over three years old. He wasn’t able to make that immediate connection which would fuel his interest to explore more about the employer brand any further. His interest lost, he struck-off the job opening and thought no more of it.

Does what was offered by this hypothetical website sound similar to what you present candidates that visit your recruitment website? If the answer is yes, this is likely precisely the response you will be receiving from candidates.

Why invest in a recruitment website?

Organisations that believe developing a recruitment website is a one-off creative project could be in for a surprise. In a candidate-driven market the best way to attract both active and passive candidates is via your recruitment website. Why? It can be a vessel for advertising jobs for those candidates who are proactively seeking a new role and for providing relevant, interesting content that will bring passive candidates to you and build brand trust.

What does all this mean? If you have had the same recruitment website for the past several years, it should be a wakeup call.

To tackle the intensifying competition for the best talent, employers need to ensure their recruitment website keeps up with the rapid pace of evolving candidate expectations and behaviour. We are in a digital and mobile era where the power base has shifted to jobseekers. Candidates make every decision based on extensive research and validation. In a candidate experience research study, 64% of candidates reported using career sites more than any other channel as a resource for researching new job opportunities. If your recruitment website does not reflect your employer brand, piquing the interest of candidates and engaging them enough to apply, you are already out of the game. Your recruitment website has a huge impact on your recruiting performance.

Why do you need a recruitment website?

Recruitment websites are the perfect place to communicate your employer brand to the target talent. A Glassdoor survey found that almost 9 out of 10 job seekers visit a company’s career site after viewing its Glassdoor profile. Jobseekers, especially Millennials, want to know everything about potential employers – their values and goals, culture, learning and development opportunities, etc. LinkedIn research found that 59% of candidates visit a recruitment company’s career site after viewing a job on their site.

Recruitment websites used to be simply a platform on which candidates could look for a job opening but today they are being used as a window to your employer brand. With this in mind, it is wise to add interesting content that aims to draw candidates in, helping them to learn what it feels like to work for your company and giving them an idea of what you can offer them.

With the concept of “candidates as consumers” fast gaining acceptance in the recruitment industry, the spotlight on recruitment marketing is intensifying. More than half (58%) of those with a negative impression of a recruitment company said they would not apply through them in the future. This means those candidates with negative experiences of an employer brand would not hesitate to take their loyalty, commitment and relationship elsewhere. By comparison, candidates who rate their experience as “great” are more likely to increase their employer relationships by applying again, referring others and accepting job offers when the situation arises.

Nearly four in five candidates (78%) believe the overall candidate experience they receive is an indicator of how a company values its people. Smarter employers are appreciating the crucial role of recruitment websites in their recruitment performance. In a research report, over 72 per cent of companies said they consider recruitment websites to be critical to their recruiting success, while 33% said that recruitment websites remain their number one tool for engaging with candidates in the attract stages.

Candidates and the user journey

Given the current candidate-driven market, it is more important than ever to use your recruitment website to engage potential talent and foster personalised connections right from the start of their candidate journey. Investing in recruitment website design will help you to capitalise on the evolving expectations, options and job search dynamics. The complex and dynamic recruitment landscape makes it imperative for employers to modernise their websites in order to stand out from the crowd.

Just remember, if a recruitment website is the first step in a candidate journey it should be impressive!

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