Since the dawn of the Internet Age, businesses have been quick to see the benefit of a company website to attract customers; however, a company website, like any communication channel, should be thought of in the context of all of an organization’s stakeholders. This includes business partners and potential business partners, as well as employees and – the focus of this blog post – potential employees.
Far too few businesses consider the impact their corporate website will have on prospective employees — a huge oversight. Put yourself in the shoes of a job seeker reviewing a posting for a position at a company they’re not familiar with. You’d almost certainly go and take a look at the company’s website as part of the application process.
So let’s look at some tips for ensuring that your website will generate a positive impression among your pool of potential job applicants.
Talk to Your Current Employees
Recognize that your employer brand, like any brand, is defined not by you, but by your audiences. In this case, that includes current employees. If you don’t know how current employees perceive your employer brand, it’s a good idea to find out — and to compare their assessments to how you would wish to be viewed. Keep in mind, though, that your brand must reflect reality. So, no matter how well designed your website is, if the messages it conveys aren’t both accurate and relevant to your audience, your brand will suffer.
Make it Easy to Navigate
Branding is about far more than the look and feel of your website. In the recruitment process, one critical element would be the third “P” of the 4 Ps of Marketing — Place, or Access. Some employers’ applicant processes are clunky, time-consuming and ultimately leave potential applicants frustrated. If that’s the case with your site, you may be losing candidates. How to tell? Your website analytics programs should be able to give you an indication of how far along the application funnel candidates are getting when they opt out and how many make it all the way through the process to submit an application.
Don’t Think Too Narrowly
Recognize that it’s not just the candidates you eventually extend an offer to, and who join your company, that impact your brand. It’s any potential candidate that views your website, attempts to apply, submits an application, goes through the interview process, etc. How responsive you are to them, how well you treat them before, during and after the interview process — especially if you didn’t offer them an interview or extend an offer — can significantly impact your employer brand.
Track Your Results
Finally, make sure to measure and monitor how you are being perceived. You can poll candidates, employees, etc.; you can conduct user experience (UX) studies to identify areas where your website may not be performing well and you can take action to continually improve these experiences — and your employer brand.
Remember that potential customers are only one of the audiences you should be catering to with your company website. Acquiring top talent is essential to the success of any business. Keep this top of mind when designing and updating the look, feel and content of your website.
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About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We are adept at evaluating and analyzing communication efforts and working with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content, through both on- and offline media to achieve desired results. Our background in business journalism, marketing and online communications makes us well-positioned to serve the needs of 21st century marketers.
We’re actively seeking new clients who are looking for help creating content for a wide array of channels—from social media posts to full-length manuscripts, and everything in between. We focus primarily on service-related B2B topics and work with a number of independent consultants interested in building their thought leadership through online channels. For ongoing content management, our first step is to fully understand your goals, objectives and competitive landscape.
Then we’ll conduct a thorough analysis and assessment of your digital presence, compared to competitors, and recommend a communication strategy to achieve your goals. But, we also regularly take on individual projects – white papers, blog posts, contributed articles, etc. If you’re interested in learning more, let us know!
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Tags: Brand Management, branding, Employee Communication, employee recruitment, employer brand, job application process, online application process, recruitment, website