A careers page for a small business

Why it should never come down

Recruiting happens when somebody leaves, which is always at a bad time. A careers page written in that week is a rushed page, and it competes against employers who prepared theirs months earlier.

A permanent page collects speculative applications between vacancies. In a small trade those are frequently better than anything an advertisement produces, because they come from people who chose you rather than answered an ad.

It also takes time to be found. A page that appears the week you need it has none of the accumulated visibility that a page live for two years already has when the vacancy opens.

What it says when you are not hiring

Say plainly that there is no current vacancy, what roles typically come up, roughly when, and how somebody can register interest. That is useful rather than disappointing to the reader.

Then give them something to read. What the business does, who works there, what a week looks like, and what you value in the people you keep. That is the material a candidate is actually assessing.

Keep a route for speculative applications and check it. An unmonitored careers route is worse than none, because the people using it are exactly the ones you wanted to hear from.

What candidates are actually assessing

Whether the business is stable, whether the people seem reasonable, and whether the work is the kind they want to do. None of that comes from a values statement, and all of it comes from specifics.

Name the team. Show real photographs of real people doing the work. Say how long people tend to stay, if that number flatters you, and say what the business has done in the last year.

Our page on about pages covers the same material for customers. Candidates read both, and frequently read the about page before the careers page.

What a careers page needs

The list below works whether or not you have an open role. Most of it changes rarely, which is what makes a permanent page cheap to maintain once it exists.

• Whether there is a current vacancy, stated at the top
• What roles typically come up and roughly when
• What the business does, in plain words
• Who works there, named, with photographs
• What a normal week actually involves
• How to register interest, through a monitored route
• What happens after somebody gets in touch

Keeping vacancies on their own pages

Put each vacancy at its own address rather than inside the careers page. That way the job can be linked, shared and found on its own, and the careers page stays stable.

Our page on recruiting pages covers what a vacancy page needs, including why publishing the pay range attracts stronger applicants rather than more of them.

When the role is filled, say so on the page and keep it live for a while. Somebody arriving from an old link deserves an answer rather than an error.

Honesty about the work

Small employers compete against larger ones on things other than money, and the honest version of the job is usually the strongest card. Say what is hard as well as what is good.

Avoid the phrases that mean the opposite of what they say. Wearing many hats is heard as understaffed, and family is heard as expected to work late. Both deter the experienced applicants you want.

Our page on honest claims covers the general principle. A careers page that oversells produces hires who leave, which costs more than the vacancy did.

Keeping it current

Review it when anybody joins or leaves, and at least once a year regardless. A team page listing somebody who left eighteen months ago is the commonest fault on these pages.

Update the status line whenever a vacancy opens or closes. A careers page announcing a role you filled in spring is worse than one saying there is nothing right now.

Our page on keeping content current covers the routine. Careers pages go stale faster than almost anything else on a small business site.