Thinker/doer Lou Adler from the Adler group has kicked off a project which aims to produce “The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World”. It is an open project in as much as he’s asking for everyone’s help in putting together all the elements of such a site, and has also considered the possibility of sharing the authoring of the final product.
The article outlining the project already includes some ideas to consider when thinking through the site’s content sources, function elements, backend, etc. Some of them are:
- Use private virtual communities.
- Take maximum advantage of user-generated content.
- Push proactive employee referral programs.
- Develop respectful, instant application processing.
- Add gadgets and feeds.
- Implement cultural branding.
- Take advantage of the current networking sites.
among others.
I didn’t think that any of those suggestions were bad or wrong. But as I was going down the wishlist, I got a picture in my head. You know those composite faces that get made from the best features of the most beautiful people (Julia’s lips, Scarlett’s eyes, etc.); and you know what happens inevitably, right? The face is at best ugly, sometimes it does not even look human.
If the best career website in the world ended up being like those composites, it would not be that great, would it? Imagine all these rich features vying for the web visitors attention making them feel sufficiently intimidated and lost to just leave the site.
And then I got the other picture in my head, which is the scene in city slickers where Curly (Palance) asks Mitch (Billy) about the ‘One Thing’ that matters most to him.
Maybe when designing a career website it’s worthwhile asking what that One Thing is. What do you want to achieve with this site first and foremost? It does not have to exclude other goals but it may steer the website’s design, development and operations in the right direction.
I was talking to a couple of friends who were interviewing for tech jobs in the financial services industry (two separate companies). These are firms that are very successful, well known, decent community stand, pay on market – I think; in other words they have a pretty good employer brand, or at least that is my perception of them
Interestingly enough, the interviewing experience for my mates had not been that crash-hot: one was kept waiting for almost an hour in the first meet, the other one had a change of time when he was on his way for the second meet, and both had core members of their interview panels rushing to get on with their day.
My first reaction was to think that they were overreacting. Then, I kind of understood why the interview experience was not aligned with the employer brand perception. More to the point, the brand perception created high expectations about the entire recruitment experience from the word go.
I guess the point is that you as a hiring company (or agency) are going to interview many more people than those you are actually going to employ or make an employment offer. That tells you that there’s stacks of individuals roaming the streets whose only experience with your company was the interview. Therefore, in the interest of preserving your brand as an employer, you may also want to pay attention to your reputation as an interviewer, which in turns means that all your hiring managers and interviewers need to get on board re. your employer brand. Logical huh.
This called my attention this morning. It made me wonder what is it that the ad was trying to sell: the house or the furniture?
Though the answer is obvious given the ad context, etc. it worried me that the pic did not feature the real estate more preeminently. And no, i did not find this being an inviting teaser to organise an inspection and get into the detail. Instead it made me kinda wonder whether there was something wrong with the property.
If you think of your career or jobs website, are you bothering with rich and heavy images that have sleek desks and slim computers in every page? Or are you listing your jobs, selling the benefits of joining as an employee and giving candidates clear pointers to get in contact with your recruiter?
I mean, are you selling the house or the furniture?
