Het is geen origineel idee, maar daarom niet minder waardevol: besteed eens per maand 1 tot 2 uur aan het doorlopen van je eigen vacature- of wervingssite. Gewoon, net alsof je een werkzoeker bent. En zet vooral de bril van het eigen bedrijf even af. Vergeet de onmogelijkheden die de leverancier of de eigen IT-afdeling je hebben proberen wijs te maken.

Hou die mindset vast terwijl je door de eigen site heenloopt. Ervaar hoe het bedrijf, de activiteiten, ambities en visie worden gepresenteerd. Spreekt het aan? Krijg je zin om hier te gaan werken? En stiekem even aan de andere kant staand: klopt het ook?

It is not an original idea, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable: spend 1 to 2 hours once a month going through your own job or recruitment site. Just as if you’re a job seeker yourself. Most importantly, stop seeing through the eyes of the company for a minute. Forget the impossibilities that the supplier or your own IT department have been telling you about.

Hold that mindset as you walk through your own site. Experience how the company, the activities, aspirations and vision are presented. It is appealing? Do you get the desire to go work there? And standing back in your own shoes: is what you read true?

Did you get enough desire to work there? Then enter the search and application process. Now you are on a totally different route where you are no longer exploring, but where you have a clear goal: find a nice and appropriate job and then apply for it.

Again, you’ll be the work seeker and therefore try to experience if the search and application process is simple and logical. You’re looking for a job, but you have little need for all sorts of stupid questions, avoidable extra efforts, early and/or overly extensive registrations, etc. This is the Internet. You need ease, simplicity and focus to increase the chances of conversion.

Record your findings while exploring and searching. These findings are the basis for improvements. You should realize that these improvements will offer the jobseekers a better experience and therefore the chance of attracting potential employees is increased. That is the business argument that should be put against the objections of a mostly technical nature by the supplier or IT department.

The objections are based on a lack of creativity whether or not combined with a false sense of superiority. “It can not” is almost always completely untrue and is a code for, we do not really feel like it, it’s too complicated, we do not know exactly how we should solve this problem, we’re just too lazy.

The only relevant question is whether employers and jobseekers benefit from the proposed improvement. Because the vacancy or recruitment site is intended for jobseekers to allow the employer to hire the right people. Everything else is just noise. As long as we bend in the direction of service providers (suppliers, internal IT department) who try to run the show, there is no chance that the goal will be reached.

It is time to change that. Go test once a month and ensure that each month your results are being heard. Walking around Jericho seven times was enough. Who knows, maybe this also applies to the improvement of the job or recruitment site. Then you will have achieved quite a bit within the period of one year…

Oh yeah, remember that wishes and needs change over time, so a vacancy or recruitment site is never finished!

(meer…)