Comment by Emily Stevenson on March 31, 2011 at 11:45am

Thanks for the comment, Morgan. I completely agree - let's hope the bad ones sort themselves out!

Comment by Brian Larson on March 31, 2011 at 12:01pm

I agree.  I would even take it a step further and say that It's all about the UI (user interface).  Only two simple words, but a lot goes into it...or as you point out, a lot needs to go into it if you want optimized results.  Branding is certainly a big part of a good UI, as is efficiency, ease of navigation and optimized flow from one call-to-action to the next call-to-action.  You can have the best content available on your site, no matter what the subject, but if your user interface is lacking you are essentially turning visitors, buyers or in this case, candidates away from your site and pushing them to competitors for the same traffic.  Put another way, a poor UI is like having a great product or service to bring to market without a delivery channel to get it there; and yes, branding should always be a part it.  Good info Emily and thanks for the post!

Comment by Emily Stevenson on March 31, 2011 at 12:28pm

Thanks Brian - UI is so important! I intend to do a whole series of these about candidate experience so I will definitely add good user interface to my list.

Comment by Luke Toland on March 31, 2011 at 1:26pm

There was a great article over on ere.net where they highlighted a report from CareerXRoads. The latter reviewed all of the Fortune 500 career websites and found only 8% had a best-in-class rating. The rating was their own methodology. Their criteria is that the career portal is:

mobile-accessible, they offer information about specific jobs and the work environment, navigation is clear, contact information is readily apparent, they engage candidates in two-way conversations via social networks and talent communities, and, though the evidence supporting it is “a mile wide and an inch deep,” they make efforts to say “why a candidate should come and stay."

 

It strikes me that so few companies consider candidates as mere afterthoughts. These are the people powering your business. So many candidates still join companies through job boards and career portals. Making a bad impression doesn't generate feelings of goodwill towards the company.

 

Likely the reason so many companies don't place much effort into these portals is because candidate expectations are low. Unemployed Job seekers don't often have the luxury of refusing to enter an application because the site was not user-friendly. Companies know this and therefore don't expend much effort into improving their marketing image. However, they ignore the experience at their peril - there are plenty of job seekers who hold a job but don't have to jump immediately. If you've held a job, chances are you're a pretty good candidate to begin with. Turning these people off is the opportunity cost of not making a great candidate experience.

Comment by Brian Larson on March 31, 2011 at 4:01pm

Good points Luke.  The impact of mobile is HUGE.  More people are accessing these sites through mobile devices/smart phones now than through PC's...and the disparity is growing rapidly.  This change in preferred access to the web has happened nearly two years earlier than the experts predicted just last year.

Comment by Emily Stevenson on April 1, 2011 at 4:11am

Completely agree, Luke - even in the current climate where there are more people looking for jobs, companies seem to forget that they don't just want any candidate, they want the best candidate. Even if they do work hard at attracting them, it seems silly to me that they're willing just to throw it away in the employment brand! Companies will continue to lose good candidates until they look at the reasons why their talent pool is so small and why their unsubmitted application forms/bounce rate from vacancy pages are so high.

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