Employer Branding and the Careers Tab: Why HR Going Rogue is A Good Thing
IT’S A LONG RUNNING TURF WAR. WHO “OWNS” THE COMPANY WEBSITE?
Ask just about any business, you will get answers that usually include Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, or even IT. But there is one group that represents every stakeholder yet rarely makes it on that list—Human Resources.
Having the best talent gives your company a competitive edge, and the key player in talent acquisition is HR. But it is the employer brand promise that ultimately “sells” your company to talent, and HR often lacks ownership of a vehicle to promote it. There are many employer brand touchpoints (like social media) but as the SVP of Sales for a major applicant tracking system company recently stated, the careers site can be reimagined as a “beautiful front door” through which talent passes as they seek to learn more about the organization.
Long before employer branding was a household name, HR departments were fighting the good fight to get a “Careers” tab on their company websites. Back in 2003 when employer branding was in a more nascent stage, I launched the first dedicated talent acquisition function for Discovery Communications. Discovery has always been a trendsetter when it comes to innovative people practices, but when I asked for a careers tab on the website, I was told by Marketing that the site was for consumers, and not meant for job postings!
Does your company website look something like this? Can you spot the Careers tab?
Employer branding has come a long way since then, but too many companies still bury their careers links, or designate very limited space for candidate-centric content. This makes no sense! The corporate brand is not the same thing as an employer brand, so shoving content designed for talent into a site designed for a consumer audience isn’t the way to go.
It’s time for HR to give up the good fight and go rogue! There is no reason not to create a full careers website uniquely geared to talent. Push for the careers tab, but then link it to a site that includes all the key elements that really showcase the employer brand: video, images, testimonials, and content that speaks directly to candidates. More and more companies are separating their career sites from corporate sites (ex: Keller Williams, Amazon, United Fray). Tools like Squarespace and just about any smartphone make it possible.
Your company’s employer brand is too important to shortchange with a buried link on a website designed for your product consumers. Go rogue!
Written by: Allison Small, Co-founder and VP of Program Development and Execution, TalentCMO
Links and other interesting stuff:
How does top talent perceive your employer brand? Click here to get your FREE 56-point professional audit of your digital employer brand as seen by candidates.
Check out this sweet Career Showcase (a standalone microsite built for candidates to show company's authenticity) that we built for one of our clients.
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