What candidates expect from a career site

A career page is a company's digital business card as an employer and a central point of contact for applicants. Accordingly, it is of great importance for recruiting, which must ask itself the following question when designing and optimizing the page: What do candidates expect from a careers site?

We have addressed this question and provide answers with the help of various study results.

According to Talent Board’s EMEA Candidate Experience Report, 61% of 25,000 respondents gather information on the Career Page of a company about employer benefits and job openings. The career page is therefore the most frequently used research channel by candidates and an absolute must-have for companies.

In second place is LinkedIn – around 50% of candidates search there for current job offers and information. It is therefore advisable for companies to have a presence here and ideally to provide links to the careers page.

What characterizes a good career page According to the EMEA study, it should clear be and without log-in requirement and extensive application forms If a career site does not meet these criteria, candidates are more likely to abandon the application process.

It is also important that the page for the Display on mobile devices optimized. Of the 3,500 candidates surveyed for the Recruiting Trends 2020 study by Monster.de and CHRIS, 16.5% stated that they would permanently abandon their job search if they encountered display problems on mobile devices.

A study by “softgarden” in collaboration with HR marketing coach Henner Knabenreich also shows that the Job search the primary goal of visitors to a career website. To achieve this goal, we support Search filter. Filtering by workplace is most important for the majority of the 1,624 applicants surveyed (61%), followed by filter options by skills (55 %).

Also interesting: What is mobile recruiting? Definition, tools, advantages and disadvantages

The study also addresses the question of which information applicants want to find on the career page. The most important criterion is therefore the Location. 76 % of the candidates surveyed want to find out more about their potential new place of work on the website. Companies should therefore take location marketing seriously, especially if it is assumed that the location is relatively unknown.

70 % expect information on the career page about Further training opportunities and for 69 % play the Corporate values and the Corporate culture play an important role. 52 % expect an informative presentation of possible Tasks and projects.

As content formats on the career website, a clear majority (52 %) prefer Combination of text and image. Videos are also popular, which Combination of text, image and video 29.5% of the candidates surveyed are in favour of this. Companies that only rely on videos, on the other hand, are at a disadvantage: only 0.75% are in favour of this form.

Also interesting: The majority of respondents (73 %) would like to see a specific contact person with names and contact options. The 24/7 communication option with a Recruiting chatbot is not well received at all – only 1.7 percent consider the digital helpers to be an asset.

Participants in the “Recruiting Trends 2020” study are somewhat more positive. Of the candidates surveyed, almost 40% believe that HR chatbots are suitable for answering their standard questions in the application process.

Among potential applicants, the Career Page a popular research channel, which sometimes has clear expectations. Companies must ensure that candidates can find all relevant information here and start the application process easily. It is also important that recruiters can be contacted via the careers page - bots can support them, but cannot replace them.

Would you like to update your career page? Then read our 8 tips for an attractive career page

(Cover image source: GaudiLab – Shutterstock.com)