How can you have the perfect recruitment website?

Maybe striving for perfection is not the answer, but you need to make sure your website is working for you.  It’s the part that connects all the expensive HR systems you have bought, with the candidates you have already paid for in media adverts.

I interviewed Stuart Johnston from Johnston North recently and I asked him from all his years of being a usability expert and working with companies such as Virgin, MTV and Getty Images, what was the one piece of advice he would give to recruiters about their websites.

The answer?

Make sure your recruitment website/jobs section can be found from your homepage.

Simple!

But it’s amazing how some institutions haven’t got the basics set up.

I know as recruiters you are extremely busy people – you have to look for the best media for your adverts, deal with applications, manage your HR systems, liaise with departments etc, but how often do you consider the effectiveness of your own website?

Your website should be your most powerful source of candidates – it’s essentially your ‘free’ portal to a world of potential employees.

By optimising your own recruitment website you can drive down recruitment costs and attract the best candidates.

Stuart also suggests that, from research, the best keywords to have on your homepage are “job vacancies” as this is what most people look for.

Your website also needs to be user friendly – it needs to be simple and logical to the user and this in turn will help you encourage people to apply for your vacancies and help you hire the best people.

If you do want to take steps to review and improve your website then we have a new report out which is based on research from 50 UK universities and testing with real jobseekers. The report is designed to help you discover not only what improvements you could make to your recruitment website, but also to provide fresh insights and practical suggestions on exactly how to make them.

You can find out more information or request a free sample to see the quality of the report for yourself by emailing us at carl@jobs.ac.uk.