“We’re happy with what we have.”
I’ve spoken to a lot of healthcare organizations, trying to point out the roadblocks job seekers have in finding the career page on their corporate site and getting to the job search, and ultimately to jobs, and then offering ways to improve the path to those areas so job seekers have a pleasant experience and can find a job that they want, quickly and easily with said organization.
I do this because I’m hoping to gain a client, sure, but moreover, I choose organizations where I see a genuine need to improve the candidate experience on their career site. When I can help them, it can sometimes bring down the costs of having job reqs remain out in the wild and unfilled longer than need be and improve applicant flow. If nothing else, it gives them a leg up over their competition who may have a better grasp of recruitment strategies.
Here’s my process. I find a small- to medium-sized healthcare organization or system, one with fewer than 5 hospitals, and I try to find a job.
That’s it.
I take a look at each page and make notes. And believe me, I make lots of notes. The copious kind.
Surprisingly, with as many piss-poor career sites and lackluster engagement that points to a fiery blaze of death for those need-to-fill job reqs, especially for mobile job seekers, I hear more often than not when speaking to gatekeepers and such this retort: “We’re happy with what we have.”
“But have you actually tried to apply for a job with your company?” I want to say, while white-knuckling my phone.
There’s not much you can do at this point in the conversation. The whole lead a horse to water thing. So, I politely tell them to keep me in mind if things change and I move on, knowing I’ll never hear from them and they will always be happy with subpar hiring practices and increased costs-to-hire.
But here are the top 5 mistakes I find most common in healthcare organizations’ recruitment platforms.
Most make it hard to find the careers link. The first thing I look for, of course, is the career page. I want to work for you. Don’t make me hunt for your jobs.
I know you have to make the Board happy and make your hospital page all visitor-friendly, but the majority of people visiting your site are shareholders who want to pat themselves on the back for that pretty but dysfunctional website… and job seekers.
The link to your jobs should be easy to spot once your page loads. At the top, above the fold, in plain sight. Not hidden in a drop-down menu, or somewhere on the page where I have to scroll to find it, and definitely not in the footer below a scroll storm of content.
The goal is to put me in front of your jobs as quickly and easily as possible. In the immortal words of Jean-Luc Picard, “Make it so.”
The next thing I find is that while your corporate site is mobile, the career page is not. Have you seen your career page from a mobile phone?
Here’s what it looks like:
“We’re happy with what we have.”
This makes me think, as a job seeker, that hiring is not a priority for you. More and more, people are on the go. That means more and more people are using their phones for daily activities, including job hunting, so you’re excluding a large portion of job seekers by not having a mobile-friendly career page.
Look at that image again. How is anyone going to find a job on a screen that small? Pinch and zoom? You expect me to pinch and zoom my way through a job search?
Guess what I have to say to that?
Never mind mobile. It’s a big deal, but let’s talk about the third thing you see. Even if I do find your career page, now I can’t find your job search. I’ve clicked through to the careers page and you have lots of lovely information on who you are and what you do, but where are your frickin’ jobs?
Oh, there they are. Hidden as a text link halfway down the page in your copy. Why are you making it impossible to find your jobs? Who thinks this is a good idea?
Gimme a button to click, something big and bold and in my face, so that I can’t miss it! Why are you making me think about this? Why are you making me hunt for your jobs? Is this your idea of engagement? Can you afford to have reqs open for months on end because I can tell you one thing: I’m not going through the trouble to find your jobs if they aren’t right there in front of me. And guess what?
No one else is either.
Here’s the best one I’ve seen. I love this. You’ve got a mobile corporate page, a career page link where it’s supposed to be, click through to your career page and this:
No information, no branding, nothing but a job search. Don’t get me wrong. I love cutting to the chase, but this is ridiculous. It looks like the HR department was forgotten in the site-design process. There’s no information on who you are or what you do or any information about company culture. Not even a logo.
Nothing.
And it’s even better looking on the phone:
“We’re happy with what we have.”
But to be honest, in this case, it’s not the fault of the site design or lack thereof. Ok, well it is. This is just sad. But it’s more about your ATS. It’s simply not able to deliver the kind of experience or engagement to job seekers that are going to get them to apply.
It’s made for recruiters. It’s built for the back end of things. And it does a great job for your recruiters, but it lacks any form of engagement on the front end.
And this one: Having to click through from your career page to your job search.
Here’s the thing. Maybe you’ve heard this before. If it takes more than two clicks to find your jobs, you start losing thirty-three percent of job seekers for every click beyond that.
Now, you want to have all that information available. It’s lovely and chock full of all the company goodness that makes you the employer of choice. And you know that most job seekers look for a career site first to find that info. While most job seekers already know where they want to work, they still may want to investigate further and get to know you better. So you want all that in there.
BUT!
They want to find a job first. Make that your priority. Once I click that career page link I should see your job search.
Let me find a job first, then let me go back and look for all that wonderful information someone in your organization took the time to create. Put the job search front and center. Keep the other crap linked in a sidebar or put it below the search. Don’t get in my way of finding a job.
When it comes down to it, ninety-nine percent of job seekers coming to your site are ready to find a job. They want to work for you. They don’t want to have to work to find your jobs. And you certainly don’t want to make it their job to find your jobs. When you do, that frustrates candidates. When things aren’t easy, you end up losing those folks. The more you lose out on, the longer your requisitions will sit there and the more it will cost you.
These are just a few of the things I see most often and I guarantee your organization is guilty of a few of them. So, I encourage you to take another look at your career site and the path to your jobs and ask yourself really, are you happy with what you have.
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