A career site is a central hub for your recruitment marketing efforts. It's a trusted ecosystem that houses all the vital (and not so vital) information about your organization and open requisitions, and if you set it up properly and keep it up to date, it has all the information a candidate needs to make an informed decision about joining your organization.

So what makes a great career site? Well, that's a trick question.

Components of a Great Career Site 

There's no clear and straightforward answer because it all comes down to your organization's needs. 

The one common thread that all career sites should have is that they:

• Tell your employer story
• Express key brand values
• Exhibit transparency of your culture 

From there, you tailor it to fit your needs.

Every organization has different priorities and values they want to highlight and personas they want to target, so the career site should be a reflection of those needs. 

Below are a few of our favorite career sites that did just that.

Pinterest - Global Workforce

For a global career site, you need to make a great first impression on not just one audience, but literally the world. 

In essence, global presence means having global employer branding and recruitment marketing, representing each location thoughtfully, authentically, and equally. Pinterest understood the assignment.

Once you land on the career site homepage, you can see diversity in the imagery. Cultural representation is incredibly important, and bonus points for using actual employees instead of stock photos. 

They feature detailed pages for each location, giving insight into the individual culture and environment that each location has cultivated. 

Highlighting different facts of the office life and using native language on the page are the little details that stand out to a job seeker, not the office address or the free snacks available in the kitchen.

WeWork - Inclusion & Diversity

Having DEI initiatives is table stakes, what’s important is how you execute them. WeWork sets a great example dedicating an entire page on their career site to Inclusion and Diversity, which navigate directly from the main site navigation. From talent attraction to employee development and advancement, they clearly outline their DEI initiatives giving job seekers a transparent view of the organization’s culture.

DEI often gets bundled together as one “initiative,” but how inclusive is it really if you're lumping everyone into one bucket? WeWork sets itself apart by highlighting its Employee Community Groups (ECGs) that have become core to their culture. These employee-led groups serve as a resource for team members by helping foster a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with WeWork’s mission, values, goals, and objectives.

A career site is your organization’s chance to make a great first impression, and job seekers know the difference between checking a box and having a system of meaningful core values in place to support your employees. So take a page out of WeWork’s playbook and create a transparent, inclusive environment from the first time they hit the career site.

DICK’S Sporting Goods - Team Spirit

Just like checking a box for DEI, job seekers know the difference between showcasing your employees and stock images (yes, it's that obvious). Highlighting your employer brand is the baseline for your career site, so make sure you represent your organization’s genuine, authentic self.

DICK’S Sporting Goods takes team spirit to a whole new level with their career site. In one scroll of their career site homepage job seekers are greeted by four real employees and their stories - and that doesn’t include their social feed. 

At the same time, you don’t want to bury the lead. Make it as easy as possible for job seekers to find current job openings and get into your talent network.

DICK’S has multiple entry points to search for jobs - by job type (retail, distribution, or corporate), by location (geo-targeted openings), and by a clear CTA backed by a thoughtful employer branding statement. Having this approach allows job seekers to search how they prefer, and they all lead to an opportunity to continue their journey into the job search and opt into the talent network.

BlackRock - Early Careers

Another essential facet of your career site is knowing your target audience. This is different for every organization, but if you have a specific talent pool that you're looking to hire, make sure that you develop an informative, easy-to-navigate experience that caters to them.

BlackRock’s early career experience does just that. The easy to find page (located in the main site navigation bar) kicks off with a clear description of the program and the opportunity to search current opportunities. But what sets them apart is the option to explore different programs without searching.

This experience keeps the job seeker on one page, making them less likely to jump because of a long, convoluted journey. When you have 8 seconds to capture someone's attention, the fewer clicks, the better. So give them what they expect to find ASAP and create a clear pathway to get there.

What can you take away?

There is no one right way to create a career site, but here are a few guidelines you can walk away with from these leading career sites; they include: 

• Showcase your authentic employer brand
• Don’t just check a box, have meaningful content
• Capture attention with a quick, seamless, to the point experience
• Highlight your differentiators

Want to see these amazing features on your organization's career site?