Washington, DC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 05/27/2011 --As you probably know, there is a great divide among staffing firms, the haves who have great job recruitment websites and the have-nots who maintain a simple online presence. As the job placement market becomes more crowded and job seekers’ expectations grow online, how can you make your staffing website more effective? Here are the top 10 tips to build an effective staffing website.

Provide Job Tools and Job Resources for Candidates

Job hunters often require guidance and assistance in defining their work experience and marketing themselves adequately. Staffing firms typically prepare and guide candidates to potential employers in person or with welcome packets. By automating the frequently asked question process online, staffing firms can help reduce repetitive requests and quickly help candidates. Effective job resource sections should offer clear and concise guides to style, job etiquette and interview questions. A large percentage of job candidates also find job search firms simply by searching for resume templates. Having useful downloads and online application tools can help your website retain and attract additional visitors and, ultimately, attractive job candidates.

Automate your Staffing Social Media Presence

If you’re already creating compelling content, one of the most challenging aspects of maintaining a corporate website is updating and distributing content. Modern websites benefit from content management systems – , software infrastructures that include tools to effectively automate how content is distributed. Updating a job in the job section can instantly post to blog or social media websites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), alert visitors by email, or send a text message directly to a mobile device. What required multiple staff members and tens of man hours now can be completed by a staff member in a fraction of the original time. A social media content distribution strategy will also improve readerships and free services such as Technorati (blog aggregators), actually do all the work for you.

Reduce Candidate On-Boarding Time through Form Automation

A typical temporary staffing candidate must complete an application and waiver process that usually requires a large amount of paperwork. A completed on-boarding file may take days to finish and often has forms that are missing, inconsistent or outdated. While some companies scan an application to a PDF, that information is typically un-editable once it’s reentered. To resolve this human resources nightmare, staffing firms are turning to powerful application automation systems that allow candidates to access and complete all their on-boarding requirements. A full automation-compliant website may offer the ability to authenticate candidates, watch important videos, complete disclaimers, provide approved electronic signatures for forms and alert supervisors of the application process. On-boarding automation systems ultimately allow staffing firms to control verifiable digital records and remain compliant to all new laws and regulations.

Integrate On-Demand Recruiting Software to your Website

A staffing-compatible, customer relationship management system can effectively update and manage new staffing positions and vacancies by automatically posting updates directly to your website. Instead of relying on manual or batch updates that are cumbersome and prone to data irregularities, integrating an automatic system can give your website more visibility and relevancy. On-demand recruiting software such as Bullhorn integration can offer real time updates that allows firms to respond to your changing business environment. Systems like Bullhorn generate, source and fill job orders, and provide seamless and secure website integrations. Ultimately, posting job orders online will help increase search engine rank and boost job wanted ads.

Use Superhero Strategies to make your Staffing Website Stand Out

In today’s media and service-soaked environment, standing out is even more vital in capturing the interest of qualified candidates and companies in need of staffing services. Staffing brands need to take center stage just like our favorite superheroes. By branding an identifiable persona along with a user experience that is consistent in every client touchpoint (email, newsletter, website, brochures), it is possible to enhance your brand’s presence and offers a superhero to rally behind. Personalizing the brand experience with a reinforceable icon or character will catapult awareness and ultimately boost your staffing website’s online and offline brand recognition.

Use job search websites to build effective mailing lists

Maximizing website traffic is essential in building an effective and robust online marking strategy. Job recruitment websites such as Monster, CareerBuilder and LinkedIn can be a tremendous source of traffic. More importantly, recruitment websites can be a tremendous source of highly targeted web traffic, given the professional nature of the networks. A while back we posted an article about how LinkedIn can be one of your most valuable traffic sources. Leverage their traffic by placing backlinks to your company’s online job board. A single national job ad on Washington Post can bring in excess of 5,000 visitors. By implementing a call to action next to every job post, giving visitors a reason to leave their email or cell phone number, you can effectively build a large mailing list. If only 10% were willing to opt in, you would have a list at the end of the year with over 6,000 new newsletter contacts. Maximizing recruitment website traffic is essential in building an effective and robust online marking strategy.

Use Geolocation to Target to New Applicants

How does a staffing firm serving multiple counties, states or countries help candidates identify the jobs they are geographically qualified for? One answer is geolocation services – the ability to recognize a visitor’s digital point-of-origin and offer them geographic targeted jobs positions. One client in the Washington, DC metro area was deficient in the number of applicants from the state of Virginia even though the number of available jobs in Virginia exceeded Washington, DC And Maryland combined. A closer look identified the problem that job candidates simply were not using standard search tools. A switch to a geolocation service within two weeks netted a 240% gain in Virginia job applications.

Simplify Resume Uploading for New Applicants

A recent staffing survey indicated that 67% of all job candidates find completing a staffing firms online application to be the number one reason they didn’t upload a resume. Instead of making job candidates complete extensive forms, try on-demand recruitment services, such as Bullhorn’s website integration, that offer staffing companies resume-only uploads. That’s right, a candidate can simply upload their resume to Bullhorn’s application parsing system, which automatically categorizes and organizes your candidate’s work history and relevant job experience. There are many on-demand services, so make sure you find the one that offers the greatest amount of workflow flexibility and online integration.

Make your Website Build Marketing Lists

Out of the thousands of applicants visiting staffing websites only a fraction will ever submit a resume or connect directly. While many job seekers will return, thousands will look elsewhere for job listings and be unaware of potential matches. Every staffing website needs at least two homepage call-to-actions to inspire visitors to learn more with the ultimate goal of leaving contact information and permission to be contacted in the future. Examples of this may include:

A. A simple promotional give-away along with an easy email signup form.
B. Integrating social media tools to allow visitors to automatically connect on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, allowing you to populate future prospects with job updates.
C. Utilizing text messaging to alert job candidates of job openings within a particular geographical area.

A well crafted marketing strategy will ultimately allow you to convert visitors to future clients and create a valuable company asset.

Build a Mobile Staffing Website

Linkup, a job search engine, reported that 21% of job seekers use mobile devices to search job boards. The trend is representative of a larger shift towards mobile devices such as smartphones and mobile tablets like the iPad. Washington, D.C. showed the largest percentage of mobile users, boasting 56% of all job seekers searching from a mobile device. A mobile recruitment job website also indicates to your prospective candidate how serious your company is about showcasing job openings – especially if those are IT or technically related. If your company’s budget doesn’t include a line item for a mobile website, then consider a content management system that can be easily viewed on a smartphone such as Drupal. Drupal offers a number of unique web development features including a highly scalable infrastructure with built in mobile support.

At Alliance Interactive, we advise our clients on the best ways to market their staffing and recruitment activities through social media, websites and with mobile applications. For additional information, please contact us at 888-222-9056.