Curate an Engaging Job Seeker Experience and They Will Come
Your association’s career center helps you boost member engagement, gain insight into prospective members and generate valuable non-dues revenue. So, how do you continue to enhance the job seeker experience and drive more traffic to your career center?
Three key things to think about:
- Stay relevant in today’s hyper-competitive market by evolving your career center
- Get personal by crafting a curated job seeker experience
- Focus on engaging younger audiences and passive job seekers
How to do those?
Evolving your career center can mean many different things based on where you are starting from.
When it comes to member engagement, associations need to anticipate their individual members’ needs to gain insight on what to do next. In the wise words of Wayne Gretzky, we need to “skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”
Evolve your job board to a career center by including features or sections that appeal to a wider range of visitors. Turn it from a space that just lists jobs to a space that has jobs-centric listings for professionals, internship listings for students and a one-stop-shop for top employers trying to reach qualified candidates in the industry. Title each section with something that ties into your industry, such as ‘apprenticeships’ or ‘residencies.’
Recently, we have seen associations take an international approach to appeal to a wider audience that may be untapped or less engaged in their industry. Career centers break down geographic boundaries and provide an easy-to-use international platform for a convenient and effective way to engage members, non-members and other program users. If you have an active international audience, think about creating separate career centers by region and linking together as a network. If not, use your main association career center as the hub for global industry jobs with a strong marketing brand to match.
Curating a job seeker experience can be accomplished in a few easy-to-do ways
Get personal with your members by integrating your career center with your association’s online community, digital badging or credentialing system, or mentor program.
Make the process quick and intuitive for members to promote themselves throughout the career center utilizing the tools your association provides. Set up modules that allow members to show off their professional certifications and credentials (many of which they have earned through your association). Give them space on their profile or online resume to include notes about their participation in leadership classes or mentoring programs so others can see they are investing in their best professional self and in their ability to reach higher standards for the profession.
*For a partial list of readily available integrations on the Boxwood career center platform, visit the Naylor Marketplace.
Engage, engage, engage
You have a lot data on job seeker and employer activity within your career center; use that data about how your career center helps members professionally thrive to power your prospective membership campaigns and event participation opportunities. And vice versa, use the data that shows which parts of your career center you feel are underutilized to strategize marketing campaigns that drive new traffic to your career center. The career center is a space your association provides to advance the growth of an industry professional and help them create a career path. Make sure members and potential members know what it can do for them.
