Don’t Let Your Staffing Firm Fall Victim to these Common Website Mistakes
Your company website is an essential part of your staffing firm’s branding and marketing efforts. Before contacting your sales team and recruiters, potential clients and candidates are most likely checking out your firm online. Thanks to the Internet, potential candidates and clients are able to access information about the history of your staffing firm, how satisfied current and former clients and candidates are with your services, and your track record in the industry. Hopefully your staffing firm’s website is one of the first resources reviewed; therefore, be sure to make it an interactive, easy-to-use site. Potential clients and candidates are going to use your website as a gauge of your level of expertise, so impress them right from the start and avoid these common website mistakes.
Ineffective Website Homepage
Your website’s homepage is the first impression users get about your organization and your first opportunity to communicate your brand. Is it confusing, overwhelming, too generic, or not stimulating enough? Too many images tend to bog down the page loading time; however, not using any photos or videos makes for a text-heavy page. Experiment with finding the right balance and ensuring loading times are optimized across your site’s pages. Your website Home landing page must make it easy for potential candidates to access current job postings, understand what the next steps are in the staffing process, and allow people to easily contact your company. There are many different staffing firms to choose from, so make sure your homepage differentiates you from the rest of the industry and grabs the attention of your potential customers enough to make them stick around and find out more about your staffing firm.
Not Designing to Your Target Audience
Trying to use a “one size fits all” website or hiring a website designer based on who is the least expensive is another common staffing firm website mistake. Website developers and website design software packages are capable of creating the basic layout, but it is important to incorporate essential marketing elements into the overall design. Your staffing firm’s website must speak to your target audience and your goal is to deliver the best possible experience for them when they reach your site. Once you identify your ideal clients and know what type of candidates they are looking to hire, you are better able to design your website to appeal to those individuals. Are you an agency specializing in clinical contract consultants? Do you only place consultants within the IT industry? In order for your website to appeal to your target audience, the language used, graphic images, and overall approach must be consistent with the industry you are hoping to attract.
Outdated Job Postings
Once users have landed on your Careers page, what do they see? If the answer is outdated job listings then you have fallen victim to yet another common staffing firm website mistake. All job descriptions must provide accurate information, be clearly written with no typos, and be immediately removed from your site once the position has been filled. Is your career site integrated with your ATS? It should be. Potential candidates who go through the trouble of applying for a position just to find out it is no longer available are bound to be frustrated with your staffing firm. Your Careers page must be easy to navigate and provide candidates the ability to filter positions based on preferred geographical location or area of expertise. It is also essential that candidates receive prompt feedback from your recruiting team to show that your organization is responsive to a candidate’s needs.
Unresponsive or Responsive Site
Nobody enjoys having to scroll back and forth just to read one line of text on their smartphone. Conversely, potential clients and candidates accessing the internet on their 80 inch Smart TV want the text on your website to be easy to read. Not designing a responsive platform for all devices is a common staffing firm website mistake. Make sure your site is easy to navigate and communicates to users that your staffing firm is innovative, not outdated. Design a customized hiring application that allows users to easily apply from their mobile phone or tablet. A responsive website ensures you are providing an optimal experience for all users, regardless of whether they are accessing your site from their smartphone, tablet, desktop, or Smart TV.
Lack of Relevant, Valuable Content
Potential candidates are looking to your team for guidance on how to effectively market themselves to your clients. Does your website provide valuable career resources or was it only designed to post available jobs? If your content is static and outdated, your company is also going to be perceived as outdated. News and announcements pages provide your website with dynamic content, as do company blogs. Updating these pages on a regular basis helps to drive visitors to your website and increase your SEO. Providing useful, downloadable content is attractive to potential job candidates and also provides your recruiters with valuable lead information.
Staffing Firm Website Mistakes Takeaways:
- A confusing or ineffective website homepage is a turn-off to potential candidates and clients
- Using a generic website layout rather than designing to your target audience
- Failing to keep your Careers page current is a major mistake in the recruiting industry
- Not designing a responsive site that is compatible across all devices
- Forgetting to include relevant, valuable career information for potential candidates
About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations.