halo careers
background
Job seekers today have access to a variety of information, from company career pages and social media accounts to anonymous reviews online. Employers can no longer rely on attractive job listings alone and instead need to provide authentic company brands that resonate with potential applicants. In fact, according to Link Humans, 78 percent of job seekers look into a company’s reputation before applying for a job. As a growing healthcare technology company, Halo wanted to revamp their career page while highlighting their company culture and talented team members.
objective
Halo’s career page needed a redesign. The current page only displayed open positions and was scarce of content showing the company’s cool culture. With this in mind we - Marketing and Human Resources - wondered: how might we design a career page that attracts top talent, along with creating a content strategy that illustrates what it is like to work at Halo?
research questions
To better orient myself to the project, I formulated a list of questions:
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What makes a great career page? What aspects need to be included to convert potential applicants into actual applicants?
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What is Halo's company brand? How should this translate into its employer brand?
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What is it like to work at Halo? What's the company culture?
contributions
For this project, I conducted secondary research to learn more about employer branding and aspects of "great" career pages, interviewed 15 team members, sketched and wireframed 3 different layouts, drafted content and microcopy, and implemented final designs on the company website.
role
Marketing Intern
team
Solo Project
purpose
Summer Internship Project
duration
May 2018 - August 2018
Timeline
Understanding the Problem
Meet with Stakeholders
Audit of Current Careers Page
Secondary Research
Concepting
Sketching and Wireframing
Interviews
Content Strategy
Web (re)Design
Content Creation
Design Implementation
Feedback + Iterations
Feedback from Stakeholders
Final Design
understanding the problem
Meet with Stakeholders
At the start of my internship, I met with members of Halo's Marketing, Human Resources, and Engineering teams to learn more about the challenges they were facing with the current career page. Previous candidates mentioned during the interview process that despite knowing the type of services the company provided, they had little to no information about what it was like to work at the company.
Halo was a start-up transforming into a scale-up. The team wanted to showcase their achievements throughout the years and highlight key people who paved the way for the company.
Audit of Current Careers Page
For the audit of the career page, there were multiple factors to consider:
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Is the page structure easy to distinguish? How do the varying headers, titles, and footers help users navigate a page?
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Are there pictures or other visuals to help users understand content?
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What is the CTA (call-to-action)? Is it within the first third of the user's screen?
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Does the web design align with the company brand?
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How does the page look across devices - desktop, tablet, and mobile?
- - - At the time, it was solely a list of open positions with a short description of the company's mission at the top of the page. While the design included similar colors and typography, it did not truly align with the company brand. What was the page missing? Content - and lots of it. - - -
Secondary Research
But what makes a great career page?
To learn more, I consulted online sources including LinkedIn, Glassdoor, SmartRecruiter, and Ongig. These sites compiled examples of successful career pages from various companies across different industries. Members of Halo's Marketing, Human Resources, and Engineering departments also shared their input about what type of content attracts them when applying for jobs.
From incorporating the company's history and perks to displaying images of employees both in the office and the community, there was a plethora of components that could enhance a career page.
concepting
Sketching and Wireframing
After gathering more details about what components should appear on a career page, I sketched some ideas.
Applicants like seeing the perks of working at a company.
Job seekers want to know who could potentially be their team members.
Halo's a growing company, and it's important to highlight their accomplishments.
The page needs to showcase the company's story through text and images.
Based on the initial sketches, I then mocked-up a few low (read: extremely low) fidelity wireframes. I created three different options to show the team.
Option 1:
Blog posts to share employee testimonials, success stories, and more.
Photos of team members to view at a glance.
Option 2:
Highlight company history to show how Halo got to where it is today.
Timeline to share company milestones.
Option 3:
Incorporate photos, company information, and words from employees all in one page.
List of open positions.
Interviews and Content Strategy
The goal of interviewing current Halo team members was two-fold. Through these in-person (or over the phone) conversations, I learned more about the company culture and realized I could turn everyone's responses into future content. Over the course of my internship, I spoke with 15 team members with each interview taking about 30 minutes.
Sample Questions
These interviews ended up becoming "Halo Highlights," a series showcasing the company's unique and talented team members!
How would you describe the culture at Halo?
What's your go-to cup of coffee?
What's it like being a [insert role]?
If you could switch roles with anyone at the company, who would you want to switch with and why?
web (re)design
Content Creation and Design Implementation
From photos of the office to blog posts about workplace culture, content had to be collected for the new career page with dynamic visuals. With the help of the Marketing and HR teams, I made a media library of images and videos from previous company events and outings. As for written content...well, that had to be created. Along with "Halo Highlights," we did other blogs including features on certain team members to showcase teams with openings and personality quizzes to encourage users to interact with the site.
Equipped with a plethora of content for the page, I started editing the company's webpage. At the time, the company's site had preset modules on WordPress that allowed me to quickly add images and text. However, since these modules were preset, there were limits on how much customization could be added.
feedback + iterations
Feedback from Stakeholders
Throughout the process, I met with Marketing and HR to show my ideas, designs, and overall progress. From the Marketing team's perspective, the page should be consistent with the company's overall branding. Colors, icons, and fonts had to be cohesive with the rest of the website. From the HR team's perspective, the page should be dynamic and encourage job seekers to apply. Company milestones, employee testimonials, and photos of team members should be front and center.
And several iterations later...the new career page was born.
Final Design
Short description of what the team does and how they do it.
Call-to-action (CTA) is within the first third of the page.
Carousel of company photos
Link to blog posts so applicants can view more details.
Company milestones.
Many job seekers want to know if their values align with the company when applying for jobs.
All of the perks!
Description on why job seekers should apply.
Link to additional content so job seekers can learn more.
Want to see the page in action? Check it out here!
pains + gains - lessons learned from this project
Pains
Since the old career page lacked content, we had to start from scratch, which is exciting and a little terrifying. Having to work with existing modules was challenging because I realized that some of my design ideas weren't feasible. If I could redo this project, I would have reviewed all of the modules before creating mockups.
Gains
In addition to better understanding the company culture, I was able to form connections with my fellow team members through interview sessions. I gained experience in copywriting, information architecture, and web design. I also learned about the importance of creating and maintaining an employer brand.