Building a Strong Recruiting Website

I do some writing and a fair amount of speaking on the emerging topic of Employment Branding. And one (and certainly not the only) impact area related to developing a compelling value proposition and brand strategy specific to the work experience with your organization is talent acquisition.  If you are an organization that proactively manages your image, reputation and experience as a great place to work and compete to bring the very best new talent into the organization,  it’s quite  likely the topic of the ‘career web site’ has been considered as part of that conversation/strategy.  I am not entirely sure when or why we made the shift from recruiting web site to career site – presumably because a ‘thought leader’ believed that most people wanted a career vs. just a job – and while that notion fades, the idea that that most career/recruiting sites have a long, long way to go still permeates the conferences, conversations and more importantly the candidate experience.

Most companies struggle to get it right but should understand that at some point, if considering a job/career with your organization, candidates (whatever the source) are going to end up on that site.  It creates an impression.  And hopefully more of the right conversions.  And good Recruiters know it can be critical asset.  Leveraged appropriately (along with a robust portfolio of additional tools) to engage the talent you are targeting not only for the requisition you have open today, but to cultivate relationships with those who possess the skills and competency your organization is going to need to compete and succeed into the future.

There is no landscape more competitive in recruiting  (the talent wars never fade in this business) than Division I College Athletics.  Tons of competition for a narrow talent pool with the very best candidates very publicly identified.  And a workforce with 100% attrition every four years means that success is entirely dependent on talent acquisition.  So, the recruiting skills and recruiting site  need to be best of class and new tools incorporated  given the target audience (the recruits are on Facebook).  This weekend I was given a prompt to check out the recruiting site of the hometown football team,  The University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.  Lead by Coach Tim Brewster, the recruiting hub  Play4Brew is pretty impressive  And while I didn’t attend nor I am necessarily a big fan (when you grew up in Ohio you tend to favor The Ohio State University)  I would assume a high school kid and his family also might enjoy the site experience along with the facebook page, twitter stream and you tube channel. The knockout new TCF Bank Stadium on campus doesn’t hurt either!

Does the Recruiting Site or Digital Footprint convert student athletes?  Not even close.  That is still left to really, really skilled competitive recruiting.  But the assets are leveraged to support introducing the talent pool to  the brand experience that is Minnesota Football.   The U is delivering a pretty robust and impressive experience.  A ton of passion on display which is something most corporate recruiting sites are lacking.   Time will tell if W’s follow.

And not a bad place to spend a little time for some alternative benchmarking  in the practice of corporate recruiting.