Back in April, when Yahoo was named the Best Corporate Careers Website in the ERE Recruiting Excellence Awards, I was on the trail of another story and merely swooped by the site for a look. Nothing fabulous or fascinating jumped out, so I didn’t go back for an in-depth examination. Until now.
ERE subsequently published more detail about why Yahoo won, complimenting the widespread use of technology, prominent display of awards, product integration, and a combined marketing approach designed to drive traffic to the career site. All of which turns out to be true–and so well done that the result is not flashy, just very satisfying. So I enjoyed taking a more leisurely tour of the site.
In fact, I had an excellent adventure, thanks to a front-page link called “Play in the Sandbox.” Click on it, and transport into the magic realm of Yahoo! Research, where your inner geek is bound to find some fun. For example: access to a huge list of technical articles, including one I couldn’t resist downloading: On trusting your socks to find each other addresses “design issues that may arise as a result of the deployment of networks of devices that will constitute the ‘Internet of Things’.” (I’ll let you know how it turns out.)
Full disclosure . . . I’m a diehard Yahoo! fan. I find their search engine superior to Google’s and I love the personalization capabilities that let me create an attractive and really useful online information center. So I’ll highlight this comment from ERE:
As we all know, Yahoo has been undergoing turmoil in recent years, so it’s particularly amazing that despite the turmoil, coupled with the economic downturn, its HR team put together an amazing Web 2.0 rebuilding effort. The result of this transformation? A career site that went from being ranked as one of the worst sites (on the prestigious CareerXroads ranking) to one of the best sites, all in a short period. The redesign tripled the amount of content consumed by its visitors, which led to increased conversion rates.
Take an extra look at that last sentence. I couldn’t find confirmation or more detail–but assuming that ERE has the facts, Yahoo got a great return on its redesign investment.
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.
Great Article!
http://www.ere.net/