5 Key Elements of a Good Employment Page

Developing a good Careers/Employment page on your school’s website is not rocket science. However, we find that a lot of schools make basic mistakes that significantly impact recruitment results. So what are the fundamental elements of a good Employment page? We’ve narrowed it down to 5 things you can do to help ensure that your Employment page delivers results:

1. A prominent, direct link from the Homepage
   Let’s face it, if people can’t quickly find your Employment page, they are likely to move on in the mistaken belief that your school does not have one. We see many websites that have a link that is so small, you can barely find it. Others bury the the link as a sub-menu item that is not directly visible from the Homepage. So, be sure to place a prominent, easily visible link to your Employment page on your Homepage or you will miss the opportunity to engage a lot of candidates.
2. List each job opportunity separately with a link to a full job description
   So often we see Career pages with statements like “We are seeking Elementary, Art, PE, Special Ed. teachers as well as an Administrative Assistant, Business Manager... Please send us your resume if you are interested.” The problem with this “cattle-call” approach is that you are inviting a lot of noise candidates - people you would never consider hiring, but nonetheless still have to spend time giving their resume a cursory read. More importantly, you are missing a chance to really weed out candidates by giving them a detailed idea of what it’s like to work in the position. Honest, detailed job descriptions that speak on an emotional level to the people you really want and discourage those whom you would never consider are essential.
3. Keep it up to date
   Most candidates won’t even bother applying if the information on the page is stale and old or they’ll attempt to call the school to inquire on a position that has been filled long ago. Remove the job opening immediately when you make a hire to avoid this kind of unnecessary disruption. Date your individual job posts on the page and provide a “page last updated” date at the top of the page to inspire confidence that these are in fact active, open positions.
4. Provide application instructions in the job description
   Be sure to give specific instructions on how to apply in the job description, not directly on your Careers page. This ensures that a candidate has at least opened the link to the job description and is not just blindly submitting a resume and generic cover letter. We recommend giving candidates specific questions to answer in their cover letter as another method for reducing noise candidates.
5. Use a generic email address for candidates to submit application materials
   It’s never a good idea to expose your recruitment manager's email or direct phone number. You should use 1 central email address like “apply@myschoolname.org”. First, this shields your manager from the avalanche of candidate email that comes when new jobs are posted or employment advertisements are running. Second, recruitment managers seem to get reassigned or leave their jobs often in our experience. So, by having a generic email to collect candidate application materials, you don’t have to edit each of your job descriptions with a new email address each time there is a change in recruitment managers.

We hope you found this article useful. If you have comments, questions or suggestions, please send us an email at contact@charterschooljobs.com.

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