The new homepage at becomearecruiter.com

THE BRIEF

The first version of the Become a Recruiter site was put together in a hurry and then neglected. When it was time for a redesign, I kept a few pieces of content and the overall structure of the site, but basically started from scratch when considering the updated business requests and user needs. The only specific feature request was to showcase a video on the homepage. 

The brief from the client detailed a key problem the site needed to solve: Many visitors to the site are unfamiliar with recruiting and staffing, yet they could be a great fit for a role based on their personality traits and overall professional skills. Therefore, the site needed to not only convert qualified candidates, but also help those candidates understand why they are not only potentially very qualified despite having no experience, but that they would find the work meaningful and enjoyable.

Pre-redesign heatmap, shown in full (split)

Results from a visitor feedback poll asking what's missing

RESEARCH PHASE

I started the project with—as always—research! I gathered a lot of info from Google Analytics on page visits, bounce rate, time on page, basic demographics, etc. I set up a feedback poll on Hotjar to ask "What other information would you like to see on this page?" to make sure there weren't any major topics we were missing. I also analyzed playback videos, heatmaps, scrollmaps, and more. 

I also combed through countless other internal career websites, to be inspired by other ideas, both good and bad. 

After studying the heatmaps and other data from Hotjar, it was clear that users weren't particularly interested in the content. The scroll maps mostly stopped after the mastheads. The heatmaps showed that the majority of users were clicking on a large, yellow "VIEW JOBS" button, but ignoring most of the other links. The first job, Staff Recruiter (which noted you needed 0 years of experience), had the most page visits; The 5 other jobs had very little traffic. 

THE STORY OF COMPANY CULTURE

Among other problems, it was clear the site was missing a distinct story and value prop. Many staffing companies are known for being not so great places to work, but this company (technically 4 brands under the same parent company), is very much the opposite. In fact, it's a certified Great Place to Work and if you talk to anybody in the company, you can see how passionate they are and how much they love their job.

A main deliverable for telling this story was a video, written and produced by one of our teams. I worked with them to art direct the video, storyboard and write the shot list, and help film. 

Screen designs, video storyboard, and sitemap

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

The site needed to share the company culture, attract candidates based on their qualities and skills (rather than their experience in recruiting), and provide enough value to lead to a conversion via an application. 

First, I restructured and simplified the sitemap and IA. Then each page was designed with a focus on cutting content, as the extra-long pages from the old site were too long to engage visitors. I took the old copy and reworked it to tell the story of the company culture through value-focused headlines, call-out boxes, interactive carousels, and small videos from employees on the job detail pages. 

I also removed the jobs from the homepage, replacing it with an animated question: 'Do you consider yourself _____?', which cycles through key traits needed in recruiters: motivated, focused, competitive, a people person, etc. Now, the content speaks to the visitor and shows them that they could be a good fit for a role, and then pulls them in to the types of opportunities offered. 

And of course, the job description pages and application process were reworked, allowing a candidate to apply with only a few form fields and a resume upload. 

Heatmap from redesigned homepage (split)

THE RESULTS

The feedback from the business was phenomenal. They have been receiving a huge increase in resumes, and they love the site. The engagement in analytics has been clear: heatmaps show clicks around all of the pages links, and video playback shows users actually reading the content. Metrics from Google Analytics have improved as well.