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Websites as job hunting tools
October 14th, 2008
In web media, you need a showroom for your products. Your website can be a real asset, or a real liability.
There’s quite a lot of debate about websites and social website profiles as job hunting tools in conventional jobs. That’s a realistic debate, because the way people react to your web content is pretty much how they’ll react to you.
That’s led to the idea that presentation of web materials should be like a job interview.
The general consensus is:
- Websites should be professionally designed
- Web content should be on a purely business and commercial basis
- All materials should be designed as job-getting presentations
- The idea is to make yourself accessible to the employer
Fine, as far as it goes, but there’s no individuality. Standard personal websites can be pretty dull things. You make the point you can get someone else to make a site for you, then you’re left with whatever content you can provide as your selling point for job offers.
As a job hunting tool, unless you have excellent professional content, it’s also debatable if this amount of effort is justified.
- If the idea is that there’s nothing to distinguish you from other applicants, it’s just wrong. Employers could spend days looking at cut and paste sites. Hardly a recommendation for anyone.
- If the theory is that you can provide extra information to a possible employer, it’s going to depend on whether that employer can be bothered looking at it, and there are no guarantees of that.
To use your site effectively in a job hunting context, in all fairness the common wisdom is a starting point, but definitely not the selling point.
You do need to show professional standards, and for some people website design is very much an acquired taste. Some people just aren’t good at it, and DIY websites can be a very mixed bag.
Unless you’re really out to show your creativity and personal style, DIY probably isn’t the way to go when trying to get jobs.
Another issue is the appropriateness of your site to the work. If you’re an accountant, you don’t perhaps need much more than a promo site. That can be done safely, and if it’s not overly demanding, it’s a selling point in that you have online business experience.
If you’re an administrator, it’s debatable if you need a site. Websites, on the professional level, have to look commercial. A public administrator can offer a service. A clerk can’t. A website could just look pretentious.
There are, however, ways of making a site function well, if you’re in the right business. These are essentially service provider sites, and they do get attention from businesses and employers.
A salesperson can have a history of sales work, and basically create a site around the services they can offer. Effectively the salesperson sets themselves up as a sales consultant, a tier above the standard sales pitch.
These sites can also give a potential employer a barrage of extra information. If well presented, and containing enough relevant material, they’re real assets.
They can also be used for a bit of bragging and showing career achievements. That’s a much better idea than it might sound. This is advertising, and if you can show some good figures and a track record in sales, you’re definitely going to get interest.
Your website is really a sort of permanent advertisement, working for you all the time. It’s better than a resume, because it can use as much space as you need, not having to be formatted so strictly.
You can use graphics, logos, and do a bit of namedropping about who you’ve worked for, which in many industries is a character reference of itself.
Use of websites varies a lot with industry. Some industries are basically data-oriented, and you may find your services wind up as a spreadsheet. Others are all achievement based, and you’ll find yourself creating a sort of travel brochure of your work, with sites of interest.
Professional websites are even more demanding. A list of qualifications, degrees, licenses, and other information really is required, because that’s how the profession operates. It’s the sort of information you’re expected to provide at job interviews at this level.
Creative media websites are basically portfolios. Consultancy services tend to be sales driven, looking for jobs, understandably enough, and advertising services and achievements because they really have to show results.
Risks and websites
Some business sites are extraordinarily dull, and hard to navigate. They give a very bad impression. The content doesn’t grip, and trying to find information is somehow made worse by site search. Links don’t link, and hyperlinks lead away from information.
Employers do not need to spend time wading through a soup of information with no obvious uses. The site needs to look like it’s trying to create business, or at least referring to business.
Many sites look like family photo albums. Folksy, but would you hire someone on that basis?
Remember, these things can be extremely expensive. That photo album effect can cost you thousands, for zero results.
If you intend to use a website for employment, take it seriously, and do it well, not because someone said it was a good idea. Make sure you have your own, clear, objectives for your site.
A few basic procedural points:
- Check out other sites of the type you intend to create.
- Find out what they offer
- Decide what material you think works, and what doesn’t
- Decide what material of your own will work best
- Cost your own website, get quotes if someone else is designing it
- Format your site and materials so it’s easy to find important information (Use headers and links to other parts of your site)
- At the start, only use a few pages, or tabs, keep it simple
- Only add media or other extras if they’re essential (You can do that later, when you’re sure you know what you want and what you’re doing)
- Templates can help, despite some sneers from purists. They give a structure
- Make sure your site looks better than the ones you checked out.
- Launch site, and get some feedback from people you know will be honest and point out any real problems
Presentation
This will sound basic, but you’re trying to get business and a job, so it needs doing, and doing immediately:
Kill all typos and text errors on sight. You can do this instantly, and your presentation is definitely not helped by obvious mistakes, as any website owner can tell you. They’re infuriating in ways you may not be able to imagine.
Keep your information current. Ancient history is interesting once, not as a regular feature. You can archive old material on a separate page of links.
Make a point of including interesting materials. Boring isn’t a sales point, and never will be. Even if your site looks a mess, anything interesting will get appreciation, and anything dull will get curses.
Content is king. It’s information that makes websites, more than bells and whistles. Media is a feature, but it can get stale, and it needs to contribute, not just distract from lack of content.
Updates are always useful. Have something current on the site.
Upgrades are strictly to your taste. It doesn’t really hurt to have old sites, because anyone can read them, and they don’t have to jump through hoops to view your site. Some upgrades are necessary, some aren’t, or at any rate, not immediately necessary. (Remember you need to think about materials, with all upgrades.)
The result of a good website
Employers will see a creative, informative, professional website, if you’ve got it all done properly. That’s the intended result, and it’s what you need to produce to achieve any significant effect.
Your website will be seen as who you are.
You can also get business, even unintentionally. You may find yourself getting enquiries about freelance work or contract jobs.
The website should be seen as a major asset, and developed accordingly.
Make it a good site, and you can publish your way into a really good job, or even a whole new career.
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