Boost Your Job Description Pages With ‘Give and Get’

How to the ‘Give and Get’ Methodology Enhances Your Job Description Pages

Companies hope to achieve a lasting impression with their career sites. Knowing that these sites are often the first point of contact an applicant has with a company, it’s surprising how many only offer the bare minimum. When they build a career website, companies frequently post the job description and call it a day. But that’s not enough.

While a job description is clearly an essential element of a successful career site, these sites too often fail to include two critical components: employer branding and employee value proposition. Why is this so important? The employee value proposition may just be the deciding factor in whether top talent applies for the job at all. Apart from employer branding, employee value propositions give potential candidates the best idea of what it’s like to work for an organization.

Think of it as the “give and get” you promise employees. Build from the role description already on your job description page. You want to tell new hires what they can expect to get in return for what they give to your organization. More important, that “give and get” must be not only compelling but true to what’s being promised. Don’t tell talent that you offer development opportunities if all they get is a course on typing. Misleading promises lead to high turnover and will force you back to square one again and again.

Enhancing the Job Description Page

Applying the “give and get” methodology to your career site often starts with enhancing job description pages, and the reason comes down to one thing: the candidate journey. Fewer applicants than you might guess arrive at your career site via your home page. In fact, 80% of them will come by way of job boards, landing on the job description page without ever having to navigate the rest of your website.

Understand that the candidate experience isn’t as linear as you might have imagined, then, and start it off right by answering every question a job seeker might have about what it’s like to work for your organization. Weave your employer branding into every page on the career site, and use the employee value proposition to offer insights beyond the duties and responsibilities of the role in question. Candidates want to know whether they’ll feel a sense of belonging. They want to understand whether the position offers purpose or will make a difference. Only by communicating your employer brand story and your value proposition can they do that.

Take it a step further by giving job seekers a preview of the opportunity they’re considering through employee testimonials. Ask team members about their proudest achievements, their biggest sources of satisfaction, or the toughest lessons the job has taught them. Inquire about what it takes to thrive or how it feels to work in your workplace environment. Then, craft narratives to add yet another layer to the candidate experience.

Revealing the truth about your organization has a way of increasing the quality of applicants — far more important than the quantity. You’re giving people the chance to make an informed decision about whether to self-select out of the process before they even apply, repelling the many and compelling the few — and that’s a good thing.

Completing the Job Description Checklist

Even with enhanced job description pages, talent will almost always want to learn more about your company. They want reassurance that the “give and get” is a true representation of what to expect come their first day. Fortunately, a wealth of content opportunities are just waiting to be explored. That said, include the following in your job description checklist:

• Company values. Provide a short summary or add a link on the job page.
• Company culture. Detail the culture or even devote a page to it on your career site.
• FAQs. Answer candidates’ most frequently asked questions about the application process, onboarding process, and so on.
• Product info. Offer details on the products employees will be selling, building, etc.
• Company performance. Share your company story and performance history.
• Diversity. Specify whether your company has diversity policies or initiatives.
• Map. Furnish a map of your office and the area around it so candidates understand the potential commute.
• Pictures. Include pictures of the office to get a feel for the environment.
• Related jobs. Allow candidates to see other related opportunities that might be of interest.

The job description page is one of the most important pieces of collateral in the talent acquisition process. Other content can add support, but you want that first interaction with candidates to be a good one. Use employer branding and employee value propositions to your advantage by putting both front and center on your career site.