Our Tips for Adapting Your Career Page to Mobile

It's a fact: new generations increasingly apply via their smartphone. According to a HelloWork study conducted in 2018, 54% of respondents declared having already applied to a job offer using their phone.

Four years later, mobile is even more omnipresent - especially when it comes to searching for information. Impossible, therefore, to do without a career page well optimized for mobile phones! In this article, we detail the best practices to adopt to offer a "mobile friendly" career page.

What is Responsive Design?

Called "adaptive design" in French, "Responsive Design" is a web development approach that consists of creating sites (and other digital interfaces) that automatically adapt to users' screen size, regardless of the device used (phone, tablet, computer...). This great adaptability therefore guarantees internet users an ergonomic and pleasant browsing experience - reading long texts is particularly facilitated.

You'll have understood: offering a mobile-compatible career page inevitably requires opting for adaptive design.

💡 Good to know

Who says "fluid and pleasant experience" says "good point for Google". Yes: search engines particularly value sites that offer their visitors optimized and comfortable navigation.

And it goes even further! You've surely already heard of Google's "Mobile First Index"? This crawling and indexing system performed by robots exclusively examines web pages in mobile version. This particular attention paid to mobile is thought in coherence with internet users' practices, who increasingly browse on their phone.

What are the best practices to adopt to offer a responsive mobile career page?

You're not unaware: your career website is a true showcase that reflects your company's identity and employer brand. You therefore have every interest in caring for it to offer the best possible experience to your visitors - who are, let's not forget, potential candidates.

💡 In an ideal world, your career page should always leave a good impression on internet users - to generate applications.

Simplify layout

Let's be clear: a responsive web page often has a clean structure, short paragraphs, simple design. Above all, avoid overloading your pages with pop-up windows and other intrusive functionalities (an automatically triggered chat for example).

Your #1 objective must be to design an ergonomic web page. The right reflex? Apply the same structure on all your web pages and favor single-column designs - which facilitate navigation. Also think about color contrast and favor light images (because too heavy weight could slow down page loading speed).

Simplify the application procedure

Who says "mobile navigation" says "minimum efforts". In other words: potential candidates browsing your career page must be able to apply simply, without any barrier standing up and preventing them from carrying out their action to the end. Avoid for example offering candidates to fill out a too long questionnaire, or to submit a CV (not all candidates have their CV on their phone!).

The right approach, to allow candidates to apply in a few clicks? Use a "LinkedIn Connect" or Indeed connection, which will allow internet users to apply without effort, by synchronizing their existing account to your recruitment solution. One-click application ("one-click apply" in English) is popular with candidates: don't miss this trend!

💡 The ideal application form? It doesn't contain too many questions, but knows how to arouse candidates' curiosity and make them want to respond! At this stage of the recruitment process, be content with absolutely essential information for you (candidate's current position, experience level, diploma...).

Care for information architecture

In other words: highlight on your career page the information that matters most for candidates, those that will have the most added value! This could be the values you defend, your available positions, your company culture, training you offer, your teams' testimonials...

💡 Also think about encouraging visitors to apply spontaneously! This way, you can passively receive quality applications - the Holy Grail of any recruiter having invested in an inbound recruiting strategy.

Test career page effectiveness through AB Testing

All marketing experts will tell you: the best way to get a reliable answer is to test! In practice, AB testing amounts to comparing two versions of the same web page or application and evaluating their performance... to identify the most effective version. In the case of a career page, certain indicators like conversion rate (visitors to candidates) or average session duration on your page (all this information being provided by your statistical data) can allow you to evaluate if one version is more or less effective than another.

💡 AB Testing can allow you to test different titles and call-to-action buttons, different forms, different colors...

Optimize your career page for mobile, in conclusion

Today still, some companies have a delay in digitalization matters. Deciding to invest in a performant and intuitive career page will therefore allow you to stand out among candidates!

By offering a browsing experience as comfortable on a computer as on a smartphone, you send an eminently positive message to your audience. Conversely, an obsolete career website can quickly contrast with your brand image, if it's particularly positive!

Finally, don't forget to think about your career page's SEO. Since 2015, non-responsive sites are heavily penalized by Google (since not referenced on Google's Mobile First index). Enough to impact your career website's visibility and, consequently, your job offers.

💡 Need more advice to optimize your career page?

Paradisiak, our web agency dedicated to HR professionals, is listening to you! Specialists in career page design, we can create together the website that resembles you.