Welcome to part 2. So where were we?

Simple navigation – Try and keep your navigation as simple as possible to allow users to make their way round the site. Most commonly you’ll find the main navigation bars along the top or down the left hand side. This makes it easier for your users to access pages deeper in the site without them getting lost (particularly important in the job search section). Once you’ve established the main ‘calls to action’ (Job application, Newsletter subscription, White paper download) on your site then you can use your navigation to try and channel your users through to each. And for recruitment agencies a well thought out navigation also allows you to make it really obvious which parts of your site are for clients and which parts are for candidates, as the preferred user journey for each will be very difficult.

If all else fails – Then ‘contact us’. It’s handy to allow users to contact you via any number of means should anything come up when using the site. Web page wise these are often seen in the form of a ‘Support’ or ‘Contact us’ page with all company contact information included such as phone number, email, skype address, social media accounts or if you prefer, an online form to be filled out. You’ll see some organisations choose to have their phone number at the footer of every page on the site which isn’t a bad idea either.

Anything else? – With all the job boards and recruitment agencies on the market candidates don’t have time to go and search each of them for a new position. This is where job alerts really come into their own. Through the use of a decent recruitment software this will allow you to automatically send out any new vacancies to your existing talent bank of suitable candidates, making the job of advertising them far easier. Any other forms of functionality which allow your vacancies to be given additional exposure such as ‘Refer a friend’ or ‘Share’ buttons are also very useful. (The share functionality for vacancies is currently being upgraded in Firefish. To see a sneak peek of it in action visit our beta client 9-20 network.)  
 
Client Spotlight:  Lusona Consultancy

Lusona is a good example of a modern day recruitment site (Design by 5th Column). With funky images, very clear taglines and some extremely good use of white space the site has a very ‘clean’ feel to it. As well as being very user friendly it’s also immediately clear who the site is targeted towards – “Have you ever taken time –really taken time- to think about your career?”

The job search is in a very obvious position which allows those candidates who are only interested in applying for the latest vacancies to do so quickly and move on.

The primary and secondary navigation bars appear in a prominent position along the top so even when you delve deeper into the site it’s very clear where you are so there’s no chance of getting lost.

As well as a ‘contact’ page with an online form you’ll also notice that they have chosen to put their contact details and social media in the footer on their homepage so users can easily get in touch.

Alongside the overall design the sites content is another highlight. Lusona successfully achieve the difficult tasks of capturing the reader’s attention and making their line of work sound interesting even to those outside their target audience. With the quotes along the top, a personal favourite being “There are three types of accountant. Those who can count, and those who can’t.” these immediately pull you in to read the rest of the text. And once you reach the bottom of the page there’s then a ‘call to action’ which helps you with where to go next.

Summary

Visiting your recruitment website will be the first time many are exposed to your company. So give visitors the reason they came in the first place quickly and most importantly give them some to come back. When you’re thinking about what content and downloads to put on there consider your sales and marketing goals and how they can help you achieve each.

For some more in depth information on web usability we’d recommend reading Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. There’s loads of very useful information in there and like his approach to website building it’s very simple and easy to read.