Are you giving your candidates the career site experience they expect?
In a recent survey of 1,000 web users, 88% said they’d be unlikely to return to a website on which they’d had a bad experience. That means that 9 out of 10 candidates who encounter a usability issue on your site probably won’t be back to apply another day.
This therefore begs two key questions — how smooth is the user experience you are offering on your own career site? And if you can make this much smoother, what do you stand to gain?
The answer to the second question is — a lot more applications and stronger employer brand perception. As for the first question, we’d need to take a much closer look at how candidates interact with your site.
How do I know if the user experience on my career site is bad?
If a candidate was having a problem with a navigation menu on your site, would they get in touch to let you know? Almost certainly not. They’d be more likely to simply move on to the next opportunity.
This makes it really important to delve into the data to get a true picture of your visitors’ experiences.
The obvious top-level statistic to look at is the application rate of visitors. This might look reassuringly normal and nothing to be too concerned about.
However, it doesn’t give you the full story of the issues many candidates could be facing whilst browsing your career pages.
What metrics can measure user experience on career sites?
Our experts in analytics pay close attention to a range of UX metrics to uncover stumbling blocks and help improve the experience for candidates on our clients’ sites. These include the following.
JavaScript errors
JavaScript is used on 95% of all web pages across the internet. It makes elements of your site dynamic and interactive and without it, things would look very boring. The trouble with JavaScript is that it brings with it a lot of code, which can sometimes contain mistakes.
These mistakes can result in issues such as the most common “script error”. This will result in some users seeing error messages, long load times, empty dropdown menus and broken button links on your site.
Dead clicks and rage clicks
A dead click is registered when a candidate clicks on a part of your site, which looks like it should animate or lead to another page, but then…doesn’t.
As for rage clicks, they are recorded when a user clicks rapidly and repeatedly on the same part of the page. This is a giveaway sign that somebody is angered and frustrated by, for example, a dead click. It’s the reddest of red flags that something isn’t right.
Quick backs
Quick backs also signal a poor user experience on a website, as they show that somebody has clicked to a new page, then immediately returned to the previous one.
This suggests that the new page was likely not what they were expecting and it was either irrelevant or gave no value to them.
Excessive scrolling
A user deemed to be “excessively scrolling” is someone who scrolls up and down a page much more than the average user.
This signals that some candidates on your site are having a problem understanding the content or struggling to understand where to click next.
Why is the candidate experience so important?
There are two big reasons to analyse and make improvements to the candidate experience on your career site.
- Removing any barriers that candidates face whilst browsing is certain to lead to better engagement and application rates. This will boost your ROI across all channels.
- Eliminating UX issues on your site will also benefit the reputation of your employer brand, as these website problems can leave a sour taste in candidates’ mouths and spoil that crucial first impression.
How can our experts help?
As well as assessing metrics such as JavaScript errors and dead clicks, our team will also recommend solutions to rectify each usability issue we find.
By analysing heat and scroll maps and real user recordings, we’ll pinpoint how candidates are interacting with your site.
Our reports will provide an invaluable insight into the candidate’s online journey, revealing the content and features that are most effective, as well as those you’d be better without.
Talk to our friendly experts today to find out how our analytics team could improve candidate UX on your career site.
Alternatively, why not take a look at our case studies to learn how we have supported existing clients, including leading employers, recruitments and job boards.
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