Auditing Your Career Website: A Comprehensive Guide
To most of us, the idea of auditing a whole process or system might sound like an undesirable task. However, it is necessary to understand where you are and which areas need changing. Therefore, auditing your career website might not be the most exciting part of the project, but it is definitely the place to start to identify areas of improvement, define future strategy, and understand pain points and pitfalls better. Let me help you out!
Now, first of all, what does an audit involve? Auditing your career website will help you ensure a positive candidate experience by evaluating various aspects, including usability, content quality, accessibility, and overall user experience. Does it still sound bad?
Let's explore the first three steps in this easy-to-read step-by-step guide to help you perform a comprehensive audit:
1. Usability Testing
Navigation: Ensure that the website is easy to navigate. Candidates should be able to find job listings, application forms, and company information with minimal clicks. Tagging your jobs on the ATS to the right city, country, functions, and keywords will make it smoother for candidates to find their dream job. Consider whether information gets saved in their profile or if they lose all the application information during the process. Are easy apply options possible? Does the CV upload function auto-populate the information into the right boxes? Which boxes are mandatory in different regions when collecting people's data?
Mobile Optimization: Verify that the website is fully responsive and functions well on different devices and screen sizes. This might seem obvious, but especially when we have content and features with different media (videos, images, widgets, chat boxes, GDPR tick boxes), it can be an easily missed pitfall.
Loading Speed: Test the website’s loading speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. Slow load times can frustrate users and cause them to abandon the site.
2. Content Quality
Job Descriptions: Ensure that job descriptions are clear, concise, and free of jargon. They should provide detailed information about the role, responsibilities, requirements, and benefits. Make sure you follow each regional requirement when it comes to publishing salary brackets and other information. We also know the power of the words you use; ensuring your job description has inclusive language will make a difference. Having a clear vision and mission for the company, with the values outlined, will make this part of the audit easier! Make sure your brand is seen in your text.
Company Information: Provide comprehensive information about your company’s culture, values, mission, and vision. This helps candidates understand if they are a good fit.
Application Process: Clearly outline the application process and what candidates can expect after they apply. Transparency is key to a positive experience. This could be part of the follow-up emails, application confirmation, or the initial application process. Where you share this information and how you wish to do so will depend on your brand and the roles you are recruiting for.
3. Accessibility
Compliance: Ensure the website meets accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1). Use tools like WAVE or Axe to identify accessibility issues.
Readability: Ensure that text is easily readable, with appropriate contrast and font sizes. Use plain language to make content accessible to a wider audience.
Alternative Text: Provide alternative text for images and ensure that all interactive elements can be navigated using a keyboard.
After these first important steps, you will need to focus on user experience, technical performance, analytics and monitoring, and communication.
Running a successful audit can be time-intensive and require a lot of effort. When we outsource an audit, we ensure someone with the experience and expertise is project managing the process, making people from other teams accountable. You might have tried to kick start an internal audit team many times, or suggested it as a side project for your HR Business partners, but it never went anywhere. If you see the value of an audit in your 2024 team goals and you want to find out more about the scale of auditing your career page and recruitment process, reach out!
You can find more information about Attract, Engage & Retain on this link.
