As promised in a previous post, here’s a roadmap to the four articles that comprise Dr. John Sullivan’s analysis of “127 suggested features or capabilities for the corporate careers website of the future.” The links will take you in order to the articles archived on Sullivan’s own website. (Links to the ere.net version are provided at the end of this post.)
Part 1: Contains an analysis of the current state of most Career sites; a list of “16 Reasons Why the Web Is a Powerful Recruiting Sales Tool”; an index of the “18 Categories of Website Features or Capabilities” that will be discussed in the series; and discussions of the first three categories, which are:
- Careers page easy to find on the lead-in page
- Immediate “wows” to get their attention
- Quick identification features
Each category has its own list, so Part 1 contains the first 23 of the 127 suggested features or capabilities. (The category names in the individual parts sometimes are not the same as they were on the index list, but they are similar.)
Part 2: Covers the next five categories, which are:
- Initial classification of the visitor
- Features that provide personalized information
- Personalized features and expedited treatment
- Features for attracting employed top performers
- Features for attracting active job seekers
This group brings the features/capabilities total to 56.
Part 3: Covers the next four categories, which are:
- Other information-gathering elements for all visitors
- Careers page features that sell them on the firm
- Jobs page features that sell visitors on this job
- Features that make it easy to find jobs
This group brings the features/capabilities total to 92.
Part 4: Wrapping up with the remaining six categories:
- Features that bring the firm to life and make the firm appear genuine
- Features that help assess job qualifications
- Features that provide feedback to candidates and that answer their questions
- Elements that help build the relationship over time
- Geographically localized features
- Other things to do related to the site, including metrics
The features and capabilities in the last category (Other things . . . ) are not numbered, so they are not included in the 127 total.
The links provided above are to the Sullivan site because the articles are more readable there and the titles are part numbered. If you prefer to read them on ere.net (where the list numbering is continuous) here are the links in order:
(Thanks to “Solo, with others” for a lakeside view of the advice business.)
Cynthia Giles has followed a serpentine career path from academia to publishing to marketing and design to information technology and corporate communications. There’s plenty of detail about this journey at www.cynthiagiles.com, but briefly--the common theme has been ideas, and how to present them effectively. Along the way, she became an accidental expert on data warehousing and business intelligence, and for the past ten years she has combined corporate contracting with an independent consulting practice that focuses on marketing strategy for smaller businesses and non-profits.
Having spent quite a bit of time looking for work, and anywhere from two weeks to two years inside a wide variety of American companies—she has given much thought to what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to creating a great employment fit.
