People are your most valuable asset. Only people can be made to appreciate in value. Brian Tracy
Performance Culture Strategic Planning Workforce Planning Recruitment, Selection, Succession Planning Performance Management, Rewards & Recognition, Work Environment Career Development, Diversity Management, Knowledge Transfer, Leader Development Retention Metrics
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Organizations have as little as a few seconds to a generous half minute to capture the interest of the web surfer.

Enhancing Your Web Presence

Does your internet presence start and stop with a listing of positions on your web site? Or is your entire web site geared to appeal to potential employees, as well as the other constituents your organization serves? Are you using the latest technologies to enhance your web presence? The amount of time you have to capture potential employees' interest is shockingly small.

Trends in Internet Communication

Organizations use ever more creative methods to communicate with potential applicants. Consider the following developments in recruitment communication and information management:

  • Professional networking
  • Social networking
  • Social Bookmarking, linking or tagging.
  • RSS feed
  • Virtual world recruiting — Can your recruiting avatar conduct interviews? An avatar is a computer user 's two or three-dimensional representation of themselves. Avatars are commonly used in video games, internet forums, advertising and in the online world Second Life.
  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • Manage your placement on search results using technology such as META tags, Title tags, IMAGE Alt tags, etc.
  • Employee quotes
  • Direct contact with employees of departments for which a candidate is interested in working
  • Videos
  • Wikis
  • Refer a friend — allows one viewer of your job openings to send the opening to a friend who might be interested
  • Email or text message updates

Beyond Benefits:

Be sure to leverage all information to enhance your web presence for recruiting. If you do not know the answers to these questions, develop a questionnaire to send to managers.

  • Has your organization won any awards lately? This doesn't refer to "best places to work" type of awards, although those are important, too. Highlight any awards for excellence
  • Does your organization have an environmental policy? Does your organization perform community service, donate time or provide paid time off for volunteer work? More and more employees seek organizations whose values mirror theirs. Highlight any attractive features of your organization's culture that might align with your target employees.
  • Video clips — what does a typical day look like? What are some interesting jobs or projects? A video showing an interesting project for biologists might attract top biologists, and it may also appeal to an accountant who enjoys working with the sciences.
  • Up-to-date press releases. What is new with your organization? How is it serving its constituents? This information is vital to the public your organization serves. But it also provides vital information about your organization's culture and values.
  • Does your organization have career paths? Most top performers are looking not only to their present job opportunity but also to the potential the job has to enhance their career. Don't force top performers to guess what their career with your organization might look like.
  • What is your employee value proposition? Do you have an employment brand? If you've taken the time to identify your EVP and create your employment brand, leverage it at every click of the mouse.

Be sure you are highlighting all of your benefits and rewards information. Do you have wellness plans? A walking trail? Access to university facilities? Discount gym memberships? Employee sponsored charity drives? An EAP? Career paths and mentoring? Conduct a benefits/rewards inventory and highlight the results.

The message you work so hard to craft will go unheeded unless you take further steps to enhance your web presence. Make efforts to drive traffic to your web site. Once there, your visitors should be able to navigate easily. There is an optimal union of technology and design for your web presence. Start with these tips and then expand your research. Finally, use technology to analyze the results of your efforts. Determine which pages are visited the most frequently, which pages are emailed the most frequently, which pages keep visitors the longest, which pages are abandoned and which pages drive your viewers away from the website altogether.