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With Google for Jobs, GDPR and Brexit really “helping” Recruitment leaders focus on a sustainable recruitment business model, your website has become front and centre of your marketing. You need it to make you money and not simply build your brand and clicks.
With the launch of the new Barclay Jones website, I’ve been waxing lyrical to clients about my experience of the web development and launch process and I’ve come up with 4 mistakes that every recruitment website may be making.
Recruitment Websites Need to Make Money!
We regularly help recruiters with the project management of recruitment websites, and digital marketing strategies, so this was a busperson’s holiday for us.
During the design phase of the new Barclay Jones web, it was clear to me that focus needed to be given in areas what we take for granted. Recruiters often forget about the journey that the website needs to take the 3Cs on:
Candidates
Client
Consultants
and Cash!
Often, a recruitment marketer is too busy to see beyond the launch of the website – and hence the goal appears to be “launch and wave goodbye”. But any finance/managing director who has freed up marketing budget to buy a new recruitment website wants more money – they want candidates, clients, colleagues and cash (not just an online brochure).
How to Build a Recruitment Website
There’s lots of content out there about how to build a website, and many a recruitment marketer will know the pain of launching a new site whilst holding down their normal day job.
There are a decent number of recruitment specific website companies – many of them offering really valuable advice… but I discovered few practical tips for recruitment marketers to help them drag surfers through the critical buyer’s journey.
Recruitment Website Mistake 1 – Look Dumb!
With GDPR, the focus on the 3Cs and recruitment leaders wanting to invest more in their recruiters, personality has never been so important. But often I look at a recruitment website, then meet the business leaders and recruiters and it’s night and day! In the board room I see passionate advocates of their niche – online “we are the fastest growing, boring, USPless job board” (sorry – tough love!)
Why? Because when recruiters “go online” they dumb down… they “de-niche” and they lose their personality. Confidence disappears and recruitment websites do not “sell”. And the blog just talks about “recruitment”
Have a think whilst you read this blog about how you can inject some personality into your recruitment website.
Recruitment Website Mistake 2 – Ignoring your 404 Page
So – this is the page you’d rather not have people go to – the page which people get to as they have entered an incorrect page on your site, or you have directed to them to a page which no longer exists. Why is it that some many recruitment websites go “doh!” amend don’t take the opportunity to drive the surfer to somewhere useful?
Check out this blog about great 404 pages and then check out Barclay Jones’ 404 page – we loved creating this one for our very own Barclay Jones 404 error page.
If people give a damn enough to come to your site, and then accidentally hit a page which has been deleted / moved, then why are you just saying “computer says no!”? Stick out your hand and guide them to where you want them to go.
Recruitment Website Mistake 3 – Having a Pants Search Results Screen
To be fair I did quite a bit of research on this and there was nothing that I could plagiarise! My instincts are that if people want to find “stuff” on your website, then making the results screen as engaging as possible is crucial. Have a think about how to get them to click on the bits YOU want them to click on to. And if you have any great ideas on this, share them with me
Recruitment Website Mistake 4 – Contact Us – Or Rather, Kill the Lead!
So you spend a fortune in time, money and emotion on getting people to come to your website. They surf about and bingo!, they want to catch up with you. Then you flick your hair and wander away…? Crazy recruiters!
I feel that the Contact Us page is THE most important page on your site. They are coming in to your shop asking for help… Hubspot agrees and has a helpful blog about the best contact us pages.
So many contact us pages are uninspiring, “templatey”, prone to getting people to NOT contact you.
What can you do with your contact page to engage and CONVERT? It’s not enough that they come to your site and your Google Analytics stats improve. You want them to “buy” from you with a subscription (GDPR alert!) or a job application, or dare we suggest that they want to speak to you… Let’s get recruiters’ phones ringing again!
Let’s Make Recruitment Websites Great Again
I couldn’t resist the “Trumpism”. Take a look at your site… figure out which pages you really want people to go to and then ask yourself if they are working hard enough for you… and can you use a little personality in them to drive conversions.
Recruitment Takeaways…
Personality
Capitalise on errors
Turn searches into conversions
Make contact easy!
Create a recruitment website that attracts and retains clients, candidates and consultants…
I train and mentor recruitment marketers to generate the 4Cs: candidates, clients, colleagues and cash.
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