As you recruit and hire new talent, your goal is to take every step possible to incite candidates to apply for your job openings – in other words, to convert job seekers into applicants and make them part of your talent pipeline. Your career site is one of your pillars of successful recruitment marketing, so make sure every page makes a strong first impression and ends with a clear call to action.
To help you achieve and maintain this goal, it’s also critical to know your site analytics and continuously monitor your progress.
About Those Calls to Action
A job description, like any ad, needs a call to action, or CTA, encouraging people to take the next step. Unless every page on your career site has a strong CTA, you’ve missed a potential opportunity to land a desired candidate. Each CTA should:
- Provide short, specific details on how to apply.
- Encourage and energize applicants, even those who may have initial hesitations about applying. For instance: “We’re excited to hear from you” or “Even if you’re not sure you meet every qualification, we still encourage you to apply.”
- Create a sense of urgency: “We can’t wait to review your application” or “Why wait? Apply today.”
And About Those Analytics
If your ads aren’t working – or even if they are – zero in and find out why. Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint the reasons; other times, not so much. That’s where data analytics come in.
- Variabilities in reaction to job ad messages makes thorough testing an important, necessary part of the process. A/B, or split, testing uses two different versions of an ad to determine which one performs best.
- When using A/B testing, change only one thing at a time. Don’t run two drastically different ads, but rather, test specific elements. A good place to start is by testing two different CTAs.
- Use analytics tools to track ad performance. Use a control group, which would be your original underperforming ad, or A, and an experimental group – the B in A/B testing.
Career site metrics can provide valuable insights into your overall recruitment strategy, as well as specific tools, methods and campaigns. Ultimately, tracking will help you optimize your time and budget and achieve the best possible ROI.
Metrics to track include:
- Number of views and views over time.
- Number and source of visitors, as well as visits over time and visit durations.
- Number and source of applications.
- Application conversion and abandon rates.
Developing and optimizing your career page, as well as making the most of your other recruitment marketing tactics, including social recruiting, employment branding and job ads and distribution, is our passion at Haley Marketing. Since our 1996 founding, we’ve grown into the largest website development, social and content marketing firm serving the staffing and recruitment industries. Contact us today to set up a free focus call and see how we can help you achieve all your ongoing hiring goals.
