Tips for improving your career site's content... without being a digital marketing expert

Each profession requires specific skills. You'll probably never be able to create a thousand-page e-commerce site or a complex, ultra-designed corporate website. And that's okay... you don't need to! You need a career site that convinces and converts your visitors into candidates. And you've got the power to do it, thanks to two things: 

• a tool that overcomes any knowledge gaps you may have in IT development and web design, enabling you to easily manage your career site's technical side. This tool is a CMS (Content Management System).
• practical advice on how to produce (and update) quality contents that will catch the eye of your target audience and help you achieve your awareness, appeal and conversion objectives.

Here are the tips!

Career site: what content do you want to publish and why?

The first tip to consider is that every piece of content you produce (and every page you publish) must have a purpose and be of genuine value to your visitors.

If you ever receive an internal request to publish this or that information for no relevant reason, you probably shouldn't be doing it. A career site is, by definition, a site that should make potential candidates want to develop their careers within your organization. So every page has to convince them to do so. For example, promoting yourself won't do any good unless you highlight real reasons for joining.

Target groups & career site: the importance of knowing who you're talking to

To find out what your visitors are interested in... you first need to know who they are. It's not easy to ask your visitors directly about their profiles and expectations. You can, however, ask the talents you come into contact with to give their opinion using forms sent automatically:

• To those who have applied from your career site, ask about your site's positive points and areas for improvement.
• To those who have joined your talent pool from other sources, ask what information they expect to find on a career site, what they need in terms of web navigation, and so on. 

👉 With a CRM tool and Recruitment Marketing campaigns, you can automatically send notification forms to talent.

‍

In short: put yourself in your visitors' shoes! You'll know what topics to address (or not). You'll also see, by analyzing the responses, that everyone probably has different needs and desires. You'll see the emergence of several “target groups”, i.e. types of profile that need to be convinced in different ways.

Some are looking for practical information, others are looking for testimonials from your employees so they can feel confident, while still others want to find key features to apply for a job in just a few clicks. Your mission: meet all these needs. By identifying your target groups and identifying how many profiles make up these groups, you'll be able to prioritize the content you need to produce!

Always keep in mind those who won't be applying right away, especially if there aren't any suitable vacancies. Always suggest, in your pages, at least one additional possibility for them to get in touch with you:

1. apply in one click by posting their CV on your career site
2. subscribe to a newsletter or directly to your talent pool
3. register for an event you organize (physical or digital)

And any other good idea your team may have.

Best practices for career site content writing

Varying content formats to attract talent

When we talk about content format, we're talking about a way of presenting information. This can be with text, images, video, diagrams, sound (e.g. podcasts), etc.

Are you familiar with the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words”?

This can be true in some cases, for example to illustrate the company's atmosphere. A photo will speak louder than a descriptive text. For other purposes, a text will be more relevant. For example, to list the various financial benefits offered by the company. That's the advantage of varying formats.

Don't be afraid to present the same information in different content formats. For example, if you're using a video testimonial from one of your employees, add some parts of the oral testimonial in written form, in a few paragraphs. Each person is a different information consumer: some will read the text, others will watch the video. By adding both formats, you're sure to speak to as many visitors as possible.

Some practical advice on visual formats:

Images	Videos
Use images from external databases as little as possible, as they don't really show who you are and don't give users faith. Visitors are not fooled, and identify generic visuals more easily than you might think.	Offer short videos that highlight the company's life and the people who work there. The longer your video is, the less people will watch it to the end. For the same reasons, you should also set out the essential information right at the beginning.
Use the lightest possible file formats to avoid weighing down your career site unnecessarily. Heavy photos can have a negative impact on page loading times, which is bad for user experience. The new .webp format cleverly replaces formats such as .jpg and .png, offering high-quality visuals at an unbeatable weight. Ask your communications/marketing team for advice.	Don't host your videos on your career site, instead post them on YouTube and then integrate the link into your career site. Thanks to a CMS, this can be done in a matter of seconds!

‍

Here's where to find the code on YouTube:

Good to know: even texts can take different shapes! For example, instead of describing a fact, you can propose a verbatim (in other words: a quotation + a name, a function and a photo) from a manager, a partner or an employee to illustrate a point. This is a welcome change from conventional corporate messages, and gives the page a visual rhythm.

Powerful copywriting for an effective career site

• Always get straight to the point: texts should be short, as should paragraphs and sentences. Don't “overdo it”: it's not because you write long sentences that you'll be more convincing... quite the opposite! Always plan a proofreading session to reduce your sentences as much as possible without altering their meaning.
• Use reading levels to make your texts more legible: highlight important words, use bulleted lists to avoid long paragraphs, use boxes when you need to add something to an already long text, etc.
• Write meaningful titles (for pages, paragraphs, etc.): every written word should have a meaning and explicitly announce what's in the next paragraph. This is important for your visitors' understanding, and can increase the time spent on your content, minimizing the risk of them dropping out. 
• Regularly propose action buttons: this encourages visitors to do what you want them to do: visit another page, find out about a job offer, apply, etc. There should be no more than 2 different actions proposed on a page, and each button should include an action verb and be no longer than a few words.
• Fill in your CMS's fields dedicated to search engine optimization (SEO): these fields are not visible to visitors, but rather to search engines (such as Google or Bing). Their purpose is to describe the page's content: title, description, targeted keywords, etc. Your CMS will tell you how to use these different fields.

👉 Improve the performance of your career site with our CMS tool built for career sites

‍

Remember to proofread your texts and have them proofread by at least one other person to check spelling and comprehension. You can also call on your organization's communications/marketing team to give their opinion. 

To be consistent and always show the same corporate identity, use the same tone throughout the site: formal or informal, serious or humorous, colloquial or professional, the way you talk about yourself (“we” or your company name)... You need to define a tone adapted to your main targets and always follow this rule. You'll gain clarity and confidence.

Think about content updates in your career site

There's nothing worse than visiting a site that hasn't been updated in a long time: out-of-date key figures, testimonials from employees who have left the company, expired job offers... There are three solutions to avoid these worries: 

1. Minimize the amount of content that can go out of date. For example, if you want to talk about a company commitment, choose to talk about a commitment you know will last over the medium or long term.
2. Write content that's easy to update, and make a note somewhere of which pages will need to be updated, so nothing gets left to chance.
3. Set yourself regular alerts in your diary to update if necessary (per quarter or even per year...). This will prevent you from forgetting or rushing things!

Of course, there are other potential problems on a career site that affect the conversion of visitors into candidates, and that go beyond content. To learn how to spot and remove them, take a look at our article: Diagnosing your career site: 10 points to check.