Quickly skim your company’s home page. If you’re like many others, you probably see mostly text and a dull color palette. If you’re like a few with strong marketing strategies you probably have content and offers on your homepage designed to attract prospects and customers. Do you see mostly text? How about a link to your career site? Then, if you’re like much many sites, scroll down to the very bottom to the “Careers” or “About Us” section hidden in the footer.

An organization’s online presence has become its identity: first impressions are more often than not formed based on a company’s website, which provides an opportunity to build a unique voice in your industry, provide information about products or services, and most importantly for HCM, share your organization’s mission, values, and goals.

While it is extremely important to use this online presence to engage with your customers, there is another website visitor you shouldn’t forget to optimize for – the potential employee. Too many companies, however, are missing out on this great opportunity when designing their websites. Today’s most talented candidates tend to research an organization in depth before applying, which includes evaluating the company’s digital presence. Interested potential applicants expect a clean, user-friendly digital experience; they want an organization that is tech savvy, invests in its employees and has the potential to grow into the future.

In the age of the candidate, where employers lament a dearth of talent in the applicant pool, top-performing candidates are acutely aware that they have their pick of top organizations. One of the best ways to stay in the game is to optimize your website’s user experience by using exciting and engaging technologies to attract and connect with best-fit candidates.

4 Ways to Attract Talent Through Your Website

  1. Build an Interactive and Engaging Career Site

For too many websites, the career page seems like an afterthought, a tiny footnote at the bottom of the homepage or hidden in the About Us page. Pages that are useful for the candidate, like the About Us page, the career site, and the application page, need to be prominent and accessible via the home page. Make your corporate career page interactive and engaging by using:

  • Videos—Embed short videos that give candidates a snapshot of the day-to-day at your office, showcase the accomplishments of current employees or talk about an organization’s mission or values to give a face to all the words on the page.
  • Photos—Use photos of actual employees in a real-life work environment rather than stock photos.
  • Social Media—Tie in your career site with social media, with links at the top of the page to LinkedIn, Twitter and more, making it easy for candidates to connect with your organization on other platforms.
  • Content—Candidates want to hear about your company’s culture and values to assess whether they would be a good fit. “Listicle” content about the perks of working at your company helps the office’s personality to shine through and is particularly valued by candidates with precious little time on their hands.
  1. Optimize Everything for Mobile Viewers

In our on-the-go culture, candidates expect websites and applications to be accessible, functional, and user-friendly on mobile devices. Ensure that everything from your career site to your applications are optimized for phones and tablets—mobile optimization also gives HR the extra perk of a shorter time to hire.

  1. Develop a Talent Community

Keep in touch with potential employees who have visited your site via a talent community. Your site should have an option for candidates to enter their contact information and submit their resumes without applying for a specific position. Best-in-Class businesses are 24% more likely to create talent communities than all others, allowing them to develop relationships with potential employees before a job even opens up. By keeping resumes on file, businesses create a talent pool from which they can handpick the best-fit candidates.

  1. Create a Seamless Application Processes

Candidates should be able to quickly and easily apply to jobs. If you’re using an ATS, don’t make them click through a million pages to register or log in before they can actually apply. Top-tier candidates value their time and they simply won’t go through with a 30-minute application process. It’s easy to automate a user-friendly application experience that outlines the application process from the beginning, updates candidates about their application status, keeps them in the loop about next steps and allows them to share feedback.

While technology is an initial investment, research shows that it pays off in the end. In fact, Best-in-Class businesses are 2.7 times more likely to up their talent acquisition technologies budget over the span of a year, yielding better employee performance and better business outcomes. With companies competing for the best talent, the choice is clear: either focus on the user experience or risk losing out on top talent.