This article originally appeared in Forbes on Sept. 21, 2022
A company may sometimes connect with a social media career site to list opportunities for candidates that fit their profile of what they need. While this may seem smooth and painless, some sites are not up to date with the company’s available career opportunities and that can cause some confusion. This can affect companies in a negative way due to those candidates receiving emails or messages saying the job is no longer available.
Companies can struggle to recover from this when they don’t understand how to fix it and update the jobs they are recruiting for. Here, 13 Forbes Human Resources Council members share tips that can help regain traffic for companies that go through these discrepancies.
1. Consolidate Your Content
Make it easy for candidates by consolidating the distribution of your content and taking advantage of technology to superpower your work environment. Use automation tools to help you post your posters in multiple locations simultaneously (your website and social media account for example) in one step. This will mitigate your workload by reducing the number of steps you take to post to various locations. – Joseph Soares, IBPROM Corp.
2. Look Into Internal And External Sources
There is a need to transition the mindset and mechanics of talent management from looking at only decisions to buy talent but also building and boosting talent internally. This is best done if you look at internal and external sources of people being in a talent marketplace—and use skills as the currency to decide the best fit-for-purpose candidate for the available role. – Prithvi Singh Shergill, entomo
3. Create A Great Candidate Experience
An engaging, robust employer brand is fundamental to attracting top talent. Many companies attempt to build an online presence by investing in these sites without a goal or an executable roadmap. These third-party sites are simply a vehicle to drive brand awareness through their extensive network. Companies must focus on creating an engaging candidate experience at the career-site level. – Sara Fatima, Verifone
4. Work Closely With Publishers
Working closely with many clients (direct employers, staffing agencies, etc.), companies control the jobs listed on their company career sites carefully. The disconnect happens when jobs are sent to publishers, then scraped and republished. We’ve also seen instances where external job sites even add content. In such cases, organizations need to work with publishers to ensure accuracy. – Kshitij Jain, Joveo
5. Complete Audits For Your Website
Have your organization’s web development team perform a complete audit of your website’s SEO to see where your traffic is coming from and ensure you’re implementing best practices to appear in your desired search results. Then, walk through the application process and UX/UI to ensure the technical aspects align with your candidate experience goals. – Patrick Donegan, SEI
6. Mention The Company Story
Keeping these pages up to date is paramount to attracting talent, but beyond that, they should articulate your company story and mission to attract like-minded people. You want to find applicants that care about your values, so detailing what it’s like to be on the team, as well as day-to-day work and long-term career path for each open position helps build the strongest team. – David Tripp, Sage Dental
7. Offer Consideration For Other Roles
When candidates attempt to apply for jobs that are no longer open, there are two options to mitigate frustration. First, offer them other job adverts or suggestions for teams to explore. Secondly, offer them the option of submitting their details for consideration for future roles like that one—and follow up so that they believe they are being considered for other things – Bontle Senne, TymeGlobal
8. Enable One-Click Apply
Overall, you want as much visibility to your job postings as possible. The company careers page should be the “landing page” for all career-related content. Having one place to keep job openings allows third-party sites to scrap your postings for additional visibility. Lastly, enabling and leveraging one-click apply will allow for a good candidate experience. – Elizabeth Corey, Velosio
9. Do Quarterly Business Reviews
Holding regular check-ins or QBRs with third-party providers is a good way to gain insights into your content and traffic, as well as benchmark against trends in the broader landscape. I have found this to be a useful motion in aligning brand assets and amplifying your value proposition in the talent market. – Megan Barbier, Jumio
10. Use An Applicant Tracking Platform
One tip to help HR managers create a more seamless user experience is to utilize an applicant tracking platform that can manage and update job postings across various sites, including the company’s website. It is also critical for HR managers to update their company careers page with the latest in employee testimonials and references. – Mark Sinatra, Aspen HR
11. Develop Your Employer’s Brand
One of the most important efforts that doesn’t get the attention from HR and talent managers that it deserves is intentionally developing your employer’s brand. If not, you are missing the mark and the talent! Your online presence, including your website, third-party sites and social media, all have to be aligned and working together to attract, engage and retain the best employees. – Bernadette Robertson, GLIDE Foundation
12. Use At-A-Glance Recruitment
Fast, at-a-glance recruitment list on company platforms is a quick way for people to get the most up-to-date information. The newer generations love social media, so having that list posted weekly on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn company pages, etc. could prove beneficial. Candidates will also be more forgiving of the out-of-date info on third-party sites when they can get it from the company page. – Tiersa Smith-Hall, The Hartling Group
13. Do Not Post Any New Ads
For open positions, do not run ads as recurring for more than 30 days. Often, great candidates get lost in the shuffle due to the immediate influx of resumes received by posting a new ad. If you close the ad and repost it after 30 days, it gives candidates that you may have missed an opportunity to reapply. Most importantly, it also moves the ad to the top of the search query on job board sites. – JacLyn Pagnotta, Allied Partners
