Just as a lot of recruitment advertising (print and online) is quite blah and not very engaging, many NZ corporate careers sites have been tarred with the same ugly brush.  Of course, career sites need to be functional and all, but many seem to have been designed with little or no consideration of the jobseeker.  At the same time the marketing department is designing glossy brochures and cool online experiences for clients.  The careers sites in many organisations look quite transactional with little emphasis on selling the merits as an employer or trying to entice ’suitable’ jobseekers to apply. In fact, on some careers sites the ‘benefits of working with us’ section reads like it has been written by a jaded and very depressed HR person.  There is a lost opportunity for HR to work directly with the IT, marketing and communications departments.  When there has been a cross-functional team approach, HR adds a lot of value through defining and communicating the organisation’s Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and the behavioural profiles of the ideal jobseeker. 

The news hasn’t been all depressing in NZ by any means.  Some public sector employers like the NZ Defence Force (eg NZ Army) and New Zealand Police have strong branding and some nifty features to ensure there is the right person-role match.  Our iconic brand, Air New Zealand includes a ‘values quiz‘ that goes beyond the “what we are looking for” section on many sites.  The professional services firms seem to go all out each year in their graduate recruitment careers sites / microsites - it has been interesting to see the growing use of emerging media like podcasts and video and I’m sure we will see features like social networking integration, txt/sms integration, RSS feeds, and recruitment blogs in coming years.  These enhancements are taking careers sites from static content to interactive and engaging.

Last month the launch of The Warehouse’s new careers site lifted the game on the NZ scene.  Check it out!  It doesn’t contain all the features listed above, but it has definitely been designed with the jobseeker in mind.

In coming months we will examine what leading practice looks like when it comes to careers sites.  We will share with you some great looking initiatives being launched overseas.  Please let us know if you come across any notable careers sites and/or features in NZ or further afield.

Paul Jacobs
Engage

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 5:32 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.