How to Use Your Professional Service Firm's Website to Recruit Awesome Talent

Got Some Job Openings? Turn Your Firm’s Website into the Ultimate Staff Hiring Tool!

Working with professional service firms is one of our specialties. Having been in the business of designing and developing websites in a variety of industries for well over a decade, we know our clients want more than just a space online to advertise their services—they want their websites to drive their talent recruitment efforts, as well. While advertising their services remains the primary goal for most firms when it comes to a website redesign, more often than not, their secondary goal revolves around staff hiring initiatives.

While a case can be made for driving hiring campaigns through dedicated platforms like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, a lot of additional good can come from leveraging your website to not only showcase open positions, but to share insights into your company culture with prospective employees.

Want to use your website the right way to ensure you’re getting top-level, qualified applicants? Read on.

First Things First—Make Sure Your Professional Service Firm’s Website is Mobile Friendly

These days, all businesses who wish to get found online—professional service firms and otherwise—should be serious about making sure their website looks good and loads quickly on all devices.

This is doubly important when using your website as a part of your recruiting process. If potential candidates hear about you while on the go—say from a friend, colleague, advertisement, etc—they’ll likely hop on their phone immediately to look up your company. If your site is not mobile responsive or fails to load in less than a few seconds, they may bounce...and you may be out a perfectly good applicant. Investing in a mobile-responsive website also implies that you’re willing to invest in your business—and in top-quality employees, by extension.

Include a Link to Your Careers Page in Your Primary Navigation Menu

If you’ve got recruitment on the brain and want a quick way to highlight this mission on your website, add a direct link to your company’s careers page in the primary navigation menu. The main nav area is one of the first places users will look while navigating your site, and the links here will nab the attention of career seekers and casual browsers alike. Sure, casual browsers may not be your target audience when it comes to hiring efforts, but if they love your brand, increasing the visibility of your careers page may inspire them to want to join your team or tell their job-seeking friends about your awesome company.

As an example in action, our friends over at BNBuilders asked us to include their Careers page in the main navigation menu to make it easier to find. Users that click into the Careers page are then treated with specific information about what it’s like to work on the BNBuilders team as well as team photos that help capture the spirit of the company. Information blocks provide users with insight into the kinds of employees the BNBuilders team is looking for as well as a calendar of events where potential applicants can meet BNBuilders managers in person. Finally, bright calls to action lead interested users to a third-party platform showcasing open positions by location.

Update Your Blog on the Regular to Give Prospective Employees a Deeper Look into Your Company Culture

Nothing makes a company look out of date like a blog that never gets updated. Posting regularly to you website’s blog is not only a great way to share your company’s successes and boost SEO, it’s also a powerful tool for giving users a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes vibe of your business.

Here at efelle, we make use of our blog in a number of ways to show off how awesome it is to be a part of this team. For one, we encourage staff members across all departments to contribute posts about topics in which they are subject matter experts—this positions them as experts in their field (and rightfully so) while giving our team the chance to showcase the kind of work everyone does (and how we do it). We also began the series Conversations at efelle to put some of our employees in the limelight and help our followers get to know our staff in a more personal, casual way. Lastly, we regularly post about projects we’re working on and clients we’re lovin’—this not only offers us the chance to brag about the work our team is doing, it also gives prospective employees a glimpse into the kind of work they might be taking on if they decide to join our team.

Nail a Great Portfolio or Case Study Design to Make Sure Your Work Can Speak For Itself

The right candidate will jump at the chance to join your team if they’re passionate about the work you’re doing. Did your team complete work on a state-of-the-art engineering project? Did you win a major case or solve a complex problem? Have you won awards for your work? Make sure your website’s portfolio or case study area shows off all the cool things you’ve been up to.

A good portfolio or case study design will give you space to highlight all the challenges, opportunities, and successes your team faced throughout a given project. If visuals are important in your industry (as they are in construction, architecture, etc.), don’t be afraid to feature big, bold (professional) imagery.

Most importantly, keep the user journey going by linking off to related projects and cases. A good CMS will allow you to create links between projects with a few simple clicks. An even better CMS—like our own proprietary FusionCMS—will allow you to create links between items housed in different areas of your site, making it easy to feature things like staff profiles and blog posts on any page in your portfolio.

When your team does good work, doesn’t the world—and potential employees—deserve to know about it?

Make the Application Process a Breeze with Custom Web Forms

Once you’ve got the attention of prospective employees, make it easy for them to submit their application.

Any good content management system—like Fusion—will allow you to create custom forms with all the fields you need for a good employee application. You can create a drop-down menu of available positions so users can choose the one they’re interested in and add a field for attachments to make it easy for users to include a resume or cover letter.

If you’re a firm that utilizes a third-party job listing and application platform, be sure to include a link to your postings somewhere on your careers page. As noted above, BNBuilders includes such a link on their careers page. As an alternate example, our friends over at KPFF Engineers offer full job descriptions on their website but link out to Taleo for the actual application process.

Note: If you do choose to include an application form on your website, be sure you’re following all relevant privacy standards. Keep abreast of international regulations (such as GDPR) and never ever ask for personal information (like the user’s social security number) unless you’ve confirmed you’re working on a platform that specializes in keeping information like this secure (most basic web forms do not offer this level of security).

Want to Start Using Your Professional Service Firm’s Website as a Powerful Recruiting Tool? We Can Help!

At efelle creative, we’ve been designing and developing websites for agencies and firms in all sorts of industries for well over a decade. Let our awesome team help build up your awesome team. Call us today at 206.384.4909 or reach out via our online contact form, and let’s start chatting about how your website can be an engine for recruiting success.