Huh, maybe we should jazz up our “Jobs” page, you think, taking in the stock photos, bland description of your values and culture, and the lone quote from an employee who—oops—doesn’t even work here anymore.
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But then your phone rings, and it’s one of your investors, and after that, you jump into a meeting with your engineers to discuss the features backlog, and then, you’re trying to work with a big customer who’s ready to jump ship… and next thing you know, it’s 9 P.M., you’re exhausted, and upgrading the jobs page has completely slipped your mind.
Sound familiar? The reality is, startup founders never have enough time to do everything that needs to get done. But prioritize other projects over a great “Jobs” page at your peril — because your ability to recruit the best candidates is seriously handicapped without one.
After all, most potential applicants are going to be using this section to judge your company. They’re wondering: will I fit in here? Is the work interesting and meaningful? What are the current employees like? How are the perks?
If your jobs page is generic or nondescript, it won’t answer any of those questions. Many talented people will take jobs with different startups, simply because those startups marketed themselves better.
Okay, so now you get why an engaging “Jobs” page is crucial. Read on to learn how to build one.
1. Interview Your Team Members
You could sit at your desk and brainstorm a long list of reasons why working for your startup is awesome — or you could talk to the people who actually work for your startup.
These conversations will probably surface reasons you would’ve never come up with on your own (like, “I’ve never worked on a team with so many Star Wars fanatics!”). More importantly, they’ll give you quotes for the page.
Employee quotes have a lot of power. Imagine if Twilio had simply written “We encourage our team members to go outside their comfort zone,” rather than including a quote) from their anti-fraud and short code manager Manasa Battula saying, “My eagerness to perform outside my comfort zone has been continuously encouraged and rewarded.” Having Battula’s quote makes the sentiment far more believable.
If you’re on a budget, you can use text quotes (ideally, with pictures of the people who provided them). However, if you have a bit more financial leeway, consider creating short videos, as Facebook has done. Video is one of the most engaging types of content, so it’ll help you create an emotional connection with potential applicants.
2. Identify Your Raison d’Etre
Okay, now you can go back to your desk, because this next step is all about you. Take 20 to 30 minutes purely thinking about why your startup exists. When you first decided to build your company, what problem were you trying to solve? Is that the same problem you’re trying to solve now? What excites you about the company? If everything goes well, what will the team and the business look like in one year? Three years? Five years?
Not only is this exercise a fantastic way to step back and make sure you’re focusing on the right things, it’ll also help you develop an inspiring one-sentence summary of your goals for the “Jobs” page.
For example, User Testing’s tagline is, “We make the world more user-friendly.”
It’s specific, but ambitious enough to make you think, Hey, I want to do that too.
Lookout’s tagline has some swagger: they’re plainly looking to attract youthful, high-energy candidates.
Whether you decide to be playful, serious, or somewhere in between, write something that no other company could use to describe itself. Many startups settle for lines like, “Join the best company in the world,” or “Come work with the smartest folks in the industry.” Since “the best” and “the smartest” are pretty subjective, lines like these are hard to take seriously.
Continue reading %How to Create a Jobs Page That Attracts the Best Candidates%
by Aja Frost via SitePoint
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