The internet is now the number 1 source of career information for candidates. Millions of job searches are carried out online every month around the world; a growing phenomenon that is showing no signs of slowing down, making an effective recruitment website design more important than ever.
We see a lot of recruitment web design briefs at Websites4Agencies, and while many contain similar feature requests and design ‘must haves’, a recruitment website should be unique and cater to the needs of the target audience. A successful recruitment website design must typically achieve the following:
Cater to the needs of candidates
The most important consideration when re-designing your recruitment website is to ensure candidates are able to find an appropriate job, quickly and without fuss. Instead of worrying over the latest wizzy features and the ‘next big thing’, deliver what the job seeker actually needs, not what you think they want to see. Recruitment website features such as keyword search, quick job search and browse links can help you reduce the visitor bounce rate and maximise candidate applications. While a creative, eye-catching recruitment website design can help your site standout, try avoiding items of friction, such as overly flashy images that distract from the core purpose of your website – recruitment!
Attract visitors
Attracting relevant candidates to a recruitment site can be a challenge – even for the best recruiters – but with a properly optimised, finely tuned recruitment website design this is achievable, even for start-up companies. Recruiting within a niche area can make it easier to compete for search engine visibility as there is less competition, however SEO should form part of the marketing mix for all online recruitment sites. By incorporating relevant keywords and site content on each page of your recruitment web design, you can ensure you attract relevant traffic to your site. The quality of traffic is far more important than quantity. There is no point having thousands of hits per day if the people finding your site are not who you are targeting. Instead of trying to stuff your website with as many keywords as possible, focus on populating the site with good quality, well-structured content that is relevant and of use to your target audience.
Encourage engagement
A recruitment website design that’s dynamic, easy to use and contains quality content will encourage visitors to return. Including useful features such as ‘job alerts’, ‘share this job’ and ‘add to wish-list’ will help you stay connected with your candidates. Encourage candidates to provide their job search criteria and utilise this information to create a personalised experience by showing relevant jobs first and suggesting relevant articles.
Social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, are a great way to engage with passive candidates who perhaps haven’t registered but have followed your business. As long as you invest a little time growing your social following, posting live job roles onto your social media profiles can help you generate applications.
Produce results
The recruitment market is all about targets. How many cold calls have you made? How many interviews have you booked? What’s your interview to placement ratio? These KPI’s enable you to monitor the performance of your staff – but are you monitoring the performance of your recruitment website design?
Google Analytics provides detailed insights on the performance of your website, showing you how visitors find your site and what they do during their visits. Using this information, you can fine-tune your recruitment web design to maximise its performance and help you attract new potential candidates and clients for your business.
Here are just a few examples of the many stats you can find using Google Analytics;
- Website Visitors
- Page Views
- Traffic Sources
- Keywords
- Conversions
In summary, the most successful recruitment website designs are quick and easy to use, visible in search engines and encourage brand loyalty. They should attract candidates and customers through social media, effective site function and personalised design.
For further advice on maximising the performance of your recruitment website design, contact our team today.
