The following from Chapter 13 - Career Opportunities - of my book,
WebForging at
http://www.WebForging.com
I'm continuing to post sample content from all the chapters of
WebForging here at NamePros. Hope you like it. Your constructive criticism is welcome.
The WebForging site is being re-designed, and will incorporate a vBulletin forum.
WebForging is written for Company Owners, Sales & Marketing Managers, and for IT people who've been given responsibility for the Company web presence. This chapter on Career Opportunities stresses the importance of on-site recruiting and spin and gives an overview of basic HR considerations online.
Chapter 13 Career Opportunities
Career Opportunities is a must section for virtually all websites. Indeed, the latest surveys show that career opportunities pages are often the most viewed section of websites.
Potential Applicants from Your Audience, in Your Industry
One of the reasons it makes so much sense to include career opportunities on your site is that many (for some sites, most) of the visitors to your site will be people in your industry. These visitors are working people, people who are not reading the Sunday classifieds. While these visitors are not reading the help-wanted section of the paper, they will often take thirty seconds to take a peek at what your company has to offer. Again, surveys show prime traffic on career opportunities pages.
Cost-Effective
Showing career opportunities on your site is the single most cost-effective way to recruit from a broad pool of talent. For a couple of hundred dollars you can make career opportunities a permanent feature of your site. That's a fraction of the cost of running a small classified-display ad in a Sunday metropolitan newspaper. And what percentage of the readers of the local Sunday paper are potential candidates to fill a particular position at your firm? Websites are simply super-cost-effective recruiting tools. Your classified ads, should you continue to run them, can be shortened up somewhat by referring to the more detailed information available on your website.
Internet Savvy Talent
For some positions it may be preferable to advertise career opportunities only on the web. If you're interested in a web-savvy candidate for a position, look for them to find you on the web by using that savvy. Watch for the way they position themselves via email. Do they offer their resume in simple text as well as in a formatted Word document? Do they simply label their attached resume, "Resume", or do they think about the ease of the recipient in locating their attachment, labeling it "Smith, John, Resume for Acme Co., January 2003"?
Keep Your Antennae Up
Even if you're not currently in the market for new personnel, consider listing the opportunities you need most often. It pays to keep the antennae up for good salespeople, for example. Our company, like many astute firms, will do whatever it can to create a position for the right individual. Collecting resumes ahead of time gives your company a jump in the recruiting cycle when you do need to add personnel.
Just be careful that you give applicants the courtesy of a response. Recent articles have documented a pathetic percentage of simple acknowledgements of receipt of employment candidates' materials. Bad manners are bad business. Go out of your way to treat applicants the way they'd like to be treated.
Write for ALL Viewers, not just Potential Applicants
Give a lot of thought to the writing of your online personnel ads, no matter what position you are trying to fill. It may not be only job applicants looking at your career opportunities. The way you portray yourself to online applicants, whatever the position, says a lot about the kind of company you are. Take the opportunity to detail your benefits and culture, highlighting every positive aspect of your work environment. Make it easy for potential employment candidates to get detailed information about working at your company.
Additional content covered in the print edition of Webforging includes a paragraph to a page or more on each of the following:
* Self-Updateable Career Opportunities
* Provide an Online Application
* Human Resources Events
* Other Human Resources Postings
* Security
(c) 2005 Keith Klein
All rights reserved.
Pre-order now! Your order now gets your name in the acknowledgements and an autographed copy, and an invitation for you and your guest to the release party.
Reputation Appreciated 
thanks for shairing
