Learning from the Best Career Pages in Homecare
In a tight job market, staffing agencies like those in homecare recruiting and healthcare recruiting have to shift their focus from just filtering out applicants to winning them. That's the job of a career pages on websites- to engage prospects by helping them experience the culture and the unique value that the company offers. It has to reach beyond the mechanics of presenting the open positions and receiving applications. These pages fill a critical role in supporting company growth. There's lots to learn from those who are doing it well. Here are our picks for best career pages in homecare.
What goes into the best career pages on home care and home health websites?
We reviewed the top 30 websites that are receiving most of the 18,000 daily online searches nationwide for people that search including the words, "home care." We ignored company size because the internet is the great equalizer - job seekers can't tell how big a company is. Since the Story team reviews or builds homecare and staffing websites almost every day, we decided that instead of just picking our favorites, we would apply this "top 30 traffic rubric" to select from those that are actually getting the most visits from job seekers.
In order words, when adequate traffic is coming in, the stakes go up for the career page. We didn't have visibility into how well their pages are converting all of those job seekers into interviews, but it's important that companies have good visibility that leads to better recruiting.
On each of the websites we reviewed every career page based on the criteria identified below. It's our hope that you can learn from their success as you review and work to improve the candidate experience that your website provides.
Nine ways that the best career pages on websites have to stand out:
- Does the career page engage and inspire using ideals and visuals that elevate the role of caregiving?
- Does the career page appeal to the unique personal drivers that bring people to consider a caregiving role?
- Does the career page tell the jobseeker about the next important steps in the process?
- Does the career page give consistent, clear guidance or a confusing action message?
- Does the career page provide social proof that other caregivers love working there and that it is either a long term relationship or an important career step?
- Does the page function just as well on a mobile device? (Active caregivers are likely to search on mobile first.)
- Does the page balance the need for open position information with other key facts that inspire and educate the caregiver about the company culture?
- Is the page visually appealing and avoid a "wall of words" or visual appearance that makes it unpleasant or hard to view?
- Does the career page make it obvious that this is more than just "another job board", because something special is happening at this company?
All the pages that we reviewed did not score equally on the nine elements that needed to stand out. The pages that we selected have multiple elements that make them exemplary, but like every website they still have room to improve. In Story's view, no website should ever be finished. There's opportunity to learn from what career pages fail to include as well - there are missed opportunities that others can pick up on.
If having enough great caregivers is the primary thing you need in order to grow as a company - is there another online goal that is more important?
Among the pages that we didn't select, there were dozens that are getting plenty of online traffic, but have almost none of the above elements. That's a huge missed opportunity. In fact, many of the top sites were not in the top 10 in traffic - they were found farther down the "Google rank" in our top 30 sites.
Getting the candidate journey right is a huge step forward for any homecare recruitment effort - and the field is wide open.
Our Best Homecare Career Page Picks for 2021
These career page examples provide insights into how career pages can actually help recruit effectively.
Interim HealthCare
This career page scores big in the area of inspiration - it speaks to the DNA of a caregiver and looks inward with the caregiver prospect to the personal "story" they are writing. Additionally, it helps people to find their own reason for considering an application, all of this with friendly and warm graphics, and encouraging language.
Another winning feature of the IHC career page is real in-depth employee stories with multiple videos on the page and more offered. The page also offers a side-by-side comparison of their differentiators in an easy-to-read chart.
Kindred at Home
The Kindred at Home career page builds in lots of important elements that make it a valuable asset. It is positioned as a more serious page, and has the ability to lift an applicant's sites beyond just the first job they might get, but to a career path. We know from current research that this is high impact element.
The page also contains a very warm video from a home health nurse with a tone the matches the other values on the page. Testimonials are present, and the site bridges the gap across their broad talent needs by taking a serious, but caring tone.
Preferred Home Care of New York
This career page hits a home run with a clear value proposition that balances two critical issues - career path and meaning at work. They follow that with delivering on the real meaning and value that a caregiver delivers in the home with powerful ideas about how caregivers change peoples lives.
A couple of testimonials with pictures are featured, followed by six very clear reasons that someone would want to work at this company - followed by more social proof. The page finishes out by answering questions and addressing qualifications - with more testimonials. The page provides two response options that make next steps clear.
Home Care Assistance
This career page delivers a warm experience that is full of images that feel authentic because they are not posed. Stock imagery is a big fail most of the time, and they've presented real people alongside the benefits of working with them.
They are making a very focused message to caregivers - it's better to work here. They provide some of the important details about their differentiators, including a very strong emphasis on career development, and something we've not seen anywhere else - training in culinary skills as part of the program. This site is among the strongest with a focus on specifics of how they help build a career of any that we've seen.
While these great career pages can cause website envy, the real cost of not having a high-performing website is higher recruiting costs and lower retention rates.
Home Instead
Among several strengths of this career page, Home Instead explains both what caregivers do and what kind of characteristics they need using easy-to-understand visuals. It communicates very effectively the essential work that a caregiver may be doing in a way that requires very little reading. Given the fact that many caregivers have diverse reading or English language skills, that's a smart move.
Another innovative element to their career page is a summary of three job types they are seeking. This page looks nothing like a job board, nor does it fall victim to the "wall of lists" approach. It also closes the page with a video that focuses on the meaning of the work - central to recruiting good caregivers. Additionally, they further avoid the commodity approach to caregiving by listing their benefits on an additional page that follows the same pattern. A final touch is the presence of a caregiver award block after a person provides their zip code- a great way to take the core message further.
So what's missing?
As you can see from the great examples that we've shared, there is a lot that goes into an effective career page for home care. For many companies (not on this list), they are starting with a website problem:
1. Their website may not easy to update, so they are stuck in 2005 designs and styles.
2. They don't have the ability to actually track how prospects interact with their website, and so they don't have a way to objectively make improvements.
3. They are failing to focus on the real drivers of the prospect on their website, so they are little more than just an uglier version of one of the large job listing sites - why would a prospect want to stay on the pages or take action?
Every career page has to be viewed as a work in progress - and more than that - an essential tool in a homecare recruitment strategy.
