Why your careers page isn’t working
I am constantly amazed by the amount of recruiters (both agency and in-house/HR) who post job adverts on LinkedIn with personal email addresses and phone numbers.
If your recruiters are doing this, it shows something is not working. It shows that they have no faith in the tools they have been given to do their job.
Here are some of the reasons why your recruiters abandon using the proper systems and 'go rogue'.
Your application process is too complicated
Nothing puts off candidates more than a complicated application process. If they have to fill out a form with dozens of boxes, upload CV, cover letter, licences, qualifications it is likely they will not bother.
Your recruiters know this. They want to make it as easy as possible to find the people you need, so they end up just giving applicants their direct contact details.
If your application process is complicated and time-consuming, it tells the applicants that you don't value them or their time.
Your ATS is badly set-up, or non-existent!
Your Applicant Tracking System should be at the heart of all your recruitment. If you haven't got one, you should! We use Zoho Recruit which can cost as little as $25 a month and which gives you all the functionality you need to track applications, publish jobs to your website and syndicate advertisements to Indeed, LinkedIn and many other job boards.
Your company marketing presence isn't very good (part 1 - social media)
I wrote recently about how LinkedIn is hijacking job advertising. You need to take control of your social media presence and all other marketing channels and get them to all point towards one place - your careers page.
If used properly, LinkedIn and Facebook can be really useful in helping potential employees find you. It's really easy to syndicate content across multiple platforms nowadays but you need to be consistent in where all this content is pointing and the message it is sending.
Your company marketing presence isn't very good (part 2 - SEO)
Recruitment advertising is a form of marketing, so you need to use some basic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to make sure the people you need can find you. Many company websites were built years ago and have never been optimised, but it's one of the simplest and cheapest ways to improve your recruitment reach.
At the very least a Google search of "Your company name + jobs" should bring your careers page back as the top result. You should also really be near the top of the results for the jobs in your industry in your town (e.g. "aircraft maintenance jobs in birmingham").
You are a small part of a larger organisation
This is one of the most common reasons recruiters 'go rogue', and one of the most difficult to solve. It seems especially common when a company has a Head Office in the US with subsidiaries in other parts of the world. Inevitably, the careers page is biased towards the US market with a section for 'rest of the World' if you're lucky!
The only real answer here is to set-up a sub-page with regional jobs which can either feed into the parent company ATS, or, even better, a localised one so you can manage your local candidates better.
Summary
So, if you are not getting the traffic you need to your careers page and your recruiters are 'going rogue', here is a short summary of what you need to do:
Set-up and use an Applicant Tracking System. Link it to Indeed, LinkedIn and any other job platforms you can.
Have a single focal point for all your job advertising and careers marketing. This should really be your ATS, with your careers page as the 'shop window'.
Take ownership of your social media accounts. Link them to your ATS so you can easily post jobs across multiple platforms.
Do some basic SEO on your careers page to capture candidates who search for your company and for jobs in your local area. Use sub-pages if you have presence in different regions.
Simplify your application process as much as possible. Show people that you value them and their time.