Claire Grove, senior marketing manager, Taleo

Last week Alice Snell talked about the War for Talent.  I wanted to take this a step further and look at this from the candidate perspective.

Job-hunting is increasingly becoming a consumer-experience. Candidates know what they want and if you can’t deliver that, they ‘shop’ elsewhere. The Internet, in particular corporate career sites, is the first place many use to get an impression of a company. If your site is difficult to use or navigate, potential candidates quickly move on.

So how do we use this consumer viewpoint to our best advantage?

As consumers, people tend to be familiar with the intuitive online experience they get through shopping sites like Amazon. Even my grandparents – silver surfers – are familiar with Facebook and MySpace. Businesses shouldn’t be wary of Web2.0; embracing these technologies and design features ensures their career websites have a similar attractiveness and ease-of-use. This familiarity creates an advantage for companies, and at the very least provides clear differentiation from their competitors.

Practical applications include:

• Self-service for candidates – all information quickly and easily to hand
• Streamlined data entry - reduced recruiter workload
• Better candidate control – increased completed applications

This all has a value for the employer’s brand – if the first experience is a good one, it helps makes you a more attractive prospective employer. Clever use of technology helps your business foster longer-term relationships through a more interactive process, increases completed applications as candidates are familiar with the systems and find them easy to use, and finally – a plus for all recruiters - captures and processes candidate information in an organised, structured way.

If you’re looking for a framework to understanding and measuring the value of these technologies, here’s a whitepaper from Taleo Research that you should find an interesting read: Career Site 2.0: Taking the Lead in the War for Talent