Early last month, the Wall Street Journal published an article stating that For Job Seekers, Company Sites Beat Online Job Boards, and Social Media. They were citing an analysis done by Jobs2Web, Inc. That caught my attention partly because the EmployWise^TM Recruitment Management Module integrates directly into our clients' site. Partly because "social media recruiting" has been all the hype so far.

The figures from Jobs2Web analysis was particularly interesting. Recruiters on average go through 219 applications per hire per job if they're looking through major job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder. But they only have to go through 33 applications if they came in from the company's career site, and 32 if the applicants come in from the search engines. According to Steve Shaffer, the CFO of Jobs2Web, it's because there's a lot of people out there looking for jobs on job notice boards and they'll apply to anything that they see might be good for them. Compared with those who are looking for specific jobs or companies from search engines.

The best way to attract relevant talent into your organization is to have an awesome career section, filled with search engine optimized content so they know exactly how and where to look for you. It'll also save you a lot of time going through applications that are not relevant. Think about it when you’re writing up job descriptions, and job titles and responsibilities, because these are the things you’ll be posting on the career section of your site or the career micro site. A little planning when you’re sourcing your talent really goes a long way.

In the next week to come, we’ll be publishing a series of articles and posts so you can make the best use of your career section to attract the best talent. And hey, if it helps you save time going through hundreds of application for just one hire. Why not right?

What are your thoughts on what you should be putting up in your career section? Let us know!

Photo by: David Vincente