More than 60% of all job seekers rely on web sites to learn about employment opportunities, according to a July 2008 Gallup poll. Yet the career pages on too many employers’ sites remain hard to use, uninformative and so frustrating that many potential applicants simply give up and go looking elsewhere.
So say Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler of CareerXroads, a New Jersey firm that analyzes corporate recruitment web sites. The biggest problem: Employers don’t design their sites with job seeking in mind.
They list openings according to their own org charts, not natural job functions. They ask applicants to fill in information determined by the structure of HR’s database—and then still demand an uploaded résumé! They fail to electronically follow up with applicants to assure them that an application has indeed been received.
Every year, CareerXroads reviews the corporate recruiting sites of the firms that make the Fortune 500. Crispin says what they find isn’t often pretty. “Only 10% of the Fortune Magazine list offer an experience that truly enhances staffing goals,” he says.
And that’s the bottom line: You can only satisfy your hiring needs if you satisfy a potential employee’s need for an easy-to-use, coherent process for learning about your organization, identifying promising openings and applying for those jobs.
Some organizations do get it right. Crispin and Mehler picked these 25 companies as the best of the best. Why not spend some time browsing through the following links? You’re sure to find an idea or two you can use to improve your own recruiting web presence.
3M
American Electric Power
Bank of America
Capital One
FedEx
Fluor
Ford
General Electric
General Motors
Goldman Sachs
Google
Intel
Lilly
Lockheed Martin
Microsoft
Morgan Stanley
Owens & Minor
P&G
St. Paul Travelers
Starbucks
Sun Microsystems
Target
United Parcel Service
Weyerhaeuser
Yahoo
What Makes an Effective Recruitment Web Site?
According to CareerXroads’ Mark Mehler, five characteristics distinguish effective corporate recruiting web sites:
-
The “jobs” or “career” pages are easy to find from the company’s home page.
-
Applicants can find at least basic information about the organizational culture, advantages of working there and benefits. Many of the sites CareerXroads likes best devote considerable attention to this info.
-
They feature job descriptions with enough detail for potential candidates to make informed decisions about whether to apply.
-
The process for inputting information or uploading a résumé is straightforward, with little duplication of effort.
-
Applicants get confirmation that the employer has received the application.
What’s the best corporate recruitment web presence overall? Mehler favors Microsoft’s. He says it does everything right, gaining especially high marks for how well it helps candidates understand what it’s like to work at the software giant.
