Ep 9 – Build an Amazing Career Site with Shannon Smedstad

Oct 29, 2014 | By Jessica Miller-Merrell | Podcast

Introducing the episode 9 of the Workology Podcast powered by Blogging4Jobs featuring employment branding expert, Shannon Smedstad. The Workology Podcast is a place where we discuss the science and art of the workplace. Gain powerful insights, resources and perspectives on the industries of human resources and recruiting. Workology Podcast is approximately 45 minutes and distributed 4-6 times a month available here on the blog, iTunes and other traditional podcast outlets. The goal is to provide an in depth and no holes barred look into the future of our most powerful business asset, the employee.

Table of Contents

EPISODE 9: BUILDING AN AMAZING CAREER & HIRING SITE WITH SHANNON SMEDSTAD (@SHANNONSMEDSTAD)

I’ve often said that your career site should be the heart of your recruiting and employment brand. Shannon Smedstat (connect with her on LinkedIn), my guest for this week’s Workology Podcast agrees. Shannon shares great nuggets of wisdom as someone who has not only built an employment brand first at Geico and now currently at CEB. She has just recently finished building and launching their new career site.

When first starting your career site, it’s important to understand your intended audience of candidates whether it’s new hires or job seekers who have applied for a job at your company recently. Shannon recommends conducting a great deal of research to really understand the needs of the qualified job seekers you seek. Shannon talks about in the podcast recording how to best use analytics to understand how, when and where people are spending time on your career site. Google Analytics which we have discussed before in previous podcasts with Carrie Corbin are a great resource to be able to understand where web visitors are spending time on your site as well as what devices whether desktop, mobile, or tablet they are using. This is extremely important as we consider how to engage the candidate and provide them the most useful information they need.

While jobs are an important part of the career and hiring site, Shannon recommends leveraging video and other resources to provide candidates with information about your company culture, benefits and other information to help to apply online. Video is a growing area of opportunity. It’s a great way to reach your candidate audience. DropBox has one of our favorite employment branding videos that shares what it’s like in the day in the life at DropBox as an employee.

RESOURCES

5 Ways to Make Your Company Careers Site Just Right

Your Brand Needs to Do More (CEB Study Shannon mentions)

76% of Job Seekers Prefer to Apply on Career Site

Your Company Career Site is the Heart of Your Employment Brand

Google Analytics for Recruiting & Hiring

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*A Special thank you to my podcast production team at Total Picture Radio.

Posted in Podcast

Jessica Miller-Merrell

Jessica Miller-Merrell is the founder of Workology, a digital resource that reaches more than a half million HR and workplace leaders each month and host of the Workology Podcast. Jessica lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, daughter, and an assortment of furry family members.