Obviously, you can’t just upload the visual equivalent of a spreadsheet and expect people to hang around for long. Except perhaps the most desperate ones, but are those really the types of people you want to attract? No, to attract top talent and capture their attention and interest, you’re going to have to come up with a top website.
Why do I need a top website, what’s in it for me?
Having a frictionless, easy-to-use website makes all the difference when you’re persuading a user. In fact, 88% of users don’t return to your website if they have a bad user experience… and 44% of them will even tell their friends about the bad experience. So no matter how good your marketing is or how hard your sales people are working, if your website isn’t up to par you’ll lose those hard-won customers in a heartbeat.
Make sure not to forget about your mobile website either. People will regularly use up to 2.23 devices at once. This sounds strange, but we’ll bet you’ve been on your phone while watching television with your laptop open. Being able to switch an experience from one device to another is essential to our multi-device way of life, and your website needs to reflect that.
Let’s have a look at a few ways to make your job board website shine, while keeping it effective.
1. Map your user flows
This first one comes straight out of the UX (user experience) handbook. Before you call your favorite designer to have them whip up the most gorgeous website design you’ve ever seen, you need to have a look at the practical side of things. Attractiveness and usability go hand in hand, but focussing on the latter first ensures that your website serves its purpose. As a result, user flows are a logical place to start.
The user flow is the way a user will behave on your website. Some users may scroll around on the homepage to find out what you’re all about. Others come in with a clear goal and will want to go straight to your job listings. Identifying these different types of users and how you expect them to behave are essential first steps when building your website. Tracking and custom links allow you to show different pages to users who come in through social media ad campaigns, users who have clicked an affiliate link, and users who have found you through Google. Make the first page they see as attractive as possible, and make sure it aligns with their most probable goals.
An example: let’s say you’re a well-known job board and you expect to get a lot of visitors who already know what your website is all about. Then it’s probably best to give the link to your product – job listings – a prominent place on your website. Make these buttons extra big and give them a prominent place in every menu: a good example is how indeed.nl does it, with the search bar front and center on every page. Choose your colors carefully, too. No matter where your users land, they’ll always find their way to where they want to be. The most obvious links that deserve a top spot are the one to your jobs list for job seekers, and one aimed at clients to get their listing on your site.
2. Keep the navigation straightforward and predictable
Don’t overcomplicate things! Be honest with yourself: as a job board, you probably only really offer a few key services. Then why bother with more than 4 or 5 buttons? Rank these based on how important they are, and don’t forget to reinforce the decisions you make with cold, hard numbers.
Let’s assume, being a job board that your job openings come first. You could build in a button leading to your job search function… but why not skip that step and make the search bar the centerpiece of your website? Google did it, and look how they turned out.
This leads us to the question you need to keep asking yourself while building: how do I make it as simple as possible for people to find what they need? Since you already know what they’re on your website for (step 1), you shouldn’t have any trouble putting the right information in front of them.
Examples of several large job boards’ home pages
3. Make sign-ups and uploads as smooth as possible
Of course, you’ll need some information from your visitors to be able to help them find a job. We can agree on one thing though, and that is that nobody likes filling out dozens of checkboxes of personal information. Let alone having to copy your entire CV into a dedicated text field (yes, this has happened to us).
Think about the information you need to get that application over the line. The bare minimum is probably a name, an e-mail address, and a CV, which translates to 2 text fields and an upload button. It could even be a choice to skip asking for a cv at first. While an active job seeker will usually have a cv on hand, passive candidates may not… so keep your targeting in mind. You could also give the option to upload a cv once, so you’ll never have to ask for it again.
Another very important point in this regard is to not force people to create an account just to use your website. This will lead to churn! You need to give them a reason to want an account, tell them what they’ll get out of it. Personalized offers perhaps? The ability to save their favorite job postings, or to save their CV on-site so they only need to upload it once.
Making your job board easy, intuitive, and frictionless to use will lead to more users, and more users mean more hires for your client.
4. Get design and UX to work together
After the first three steps, you should have a clear idea of the bones of your website. Now’s the time to get creative and start applying your branding to the structure. Make sure not to clutter up your homepage with unnecessary elements. Your visitors are not here to be bombarded by visuals or to marvel at the amazing designs you have: assume they’re here to look for a job, and they don’t have time for anything else.
However… don’t underestimate the power of recognizability! Your brand to an extent is your currency, and having visitors remember your brand is invaluable. There are many ways to make this happen: a clear logo that returns all over your website, a brand color set that separates you from the competition, or a visual style that makes your website unique.
Uniformity is a very important part of this: make sure buttons or functional elements keep the same style across your website and so they stay easy to find.
By the way, the same goes for social media advertising and other parts of your recruitment marketing funnel. Make sure your brand is easily recognizable in an instant, have your branding make several appearances across channels, and be consistent. This way candidates landing on your job board page will know exactly where they are and who got them there – you!
Color has a huge effect as well. Just changing your button colors or the color of your website header could have an effect on your conversion rate. In one specific test, a green button had a 21% higher conversion rate than a red button. Of course this depends on your target audience and the style of your brand, but we advise you to A-B test this extensively.
Paradoxically, whitespace can be equally important. It draws attention to more important elements and makes them stand out.
5. Never stop iterating and testing
This final tip is an ongoing one. Just keep in mind that every time you think you’re done, that means you can start testing. Testing can take many shapes:
- Let someone use your website and look over their shoulder.
- Ask for user feedback with a pop-up poll.
- Run tests where you change the color of important buttons, or move things around in the menu and compare the results.
Testing different aspects of your website will allow you to expand your knowledge about what works for your brand and improve conversion rates in the process. Improving each button on your website for 10% gains might improve the overall result with 100%!
Give your website every chance to succeed by attracting traffic
Not yet getting the visitors you need to accurately track your user flows? Wonderkind can help. Our social media advertising technology accurately targets your desired audience where they are, using personalized job ads. Just send us your job description and we’ll automatically create a tailored campaign to get exactly the type of visitor you want. Ensuring your brand new UX design can be admired – and tested – immediately!
