Digital Agency for Swanley Businesses

Candidates Look You Up Before They Apply

Almost nobody applies for a job without visiting the company website first. They want to know what the organisation actually does, whether it looks like somewhere they would want to work, and whether it seems to be doing well.

What they usually find is a site built entirely for customers, with a careers page that lists vacancies as plain text and says nothing about the organisation as an employer.

That is a missed opportunity rather than a disaster. The people looking are already interested — they arrived deliberately. Giving them something to read is a smaller piece of work than most recruitment activity and it reaches people at the point where they are deciding.

A Careers Section Worth Visiting

A useful careers section does more than list openings.

It explains what the organisation does in terms someone outside would understand, describes what working there is actually like, and gives some sense of how people join and what happens once they do.

None of that needs to be elaborate. A page explaining the business, a page about working there, and current vacancies presented clearly is considerably more than most organisations have — and it can be built once and maintained with minimal effort.

Individual Pages for Roles

Vacancies handled as separate pages rather than entries on a list are more useful for several reasons.

Each has an address that can be sent, shared or linked from a job board. Each can carry the full detail without a list becoming unwieldy. And each can be structured properly rather than being a wall of pasted text.

The information candidates look for is fairly consistent: what the role involves day to day, what is genuinely required as opposed to desirable, where it is based and whether there is flexibility, what the salary range is, and what happens after applying.

Salary in particular — a good number of people will not apply without it, and omitting it filters candidates on their willingness to guess rather than their suitability.

Showing the Place Rather Than Describing It

Statements about culture are largely interchangeable across organisations. Everyone is collaborative, supportive and committed to development.

What distinguishes one employer from another is specific and usually visual. Photographs of the actual workplace and actual people rather than stock imagery. A short video of somebody describing what they do. An honest account of how a week runs.

Where genuine employee accounts exist, they carry considerably more weight than any corporate description — provided they are real and the person agreed to it. Invented or heavily edited testimonials read as exactly what they are.

Reading About a Job on a Phone

People frequently look at vacancies on a phone, often outside working hours and rarely at a desk.

What that requires is straightforward: role information readable without pinching, no PDF-only job descriptions, and an application process that does not demand a desktop. A candidate who finds it awkward may intend to return later on a computer, and a proportion never will.

Where an application system is involved, worth checking how it behaves on a phone — the website may be fine while the linked system is not, and candidates will not distinguish between the two.

Connecting to How You Actually Recruit

Most organisations already use something for applications — an applicant tracking system, an agency, a shared inbox.

The website should hand over cleanly rather than duplicating it. That might mean linking to the system, embedding an application form, or simply making clear where to send a CV.

Where Webflow is set up with a vacancies collection, adding a role becomes filling in fields rather than building a page — which matters, because the alternative is vacancies being posted late and left up after they close.

Keeping Vacancies Current

An out-of-date careers page is worse than none at all. A role advertised months after it was filled suggests either disorganisation or a business that has stopped paying attention.

Two habits handle it: removing or marking roles as closed when they are filled, and reviewing the section occasionally even when nothing is being advertised. Where a business recruits only occasionally, it is worth deciding what the page says between vacancies rather than leaving stale listings.

Recruitment Messaging Is Not Customer Messaging

The two audiences want different things and should not be addressed identically.

A customer wants to know what you deliver and whether you are reliable. A candidate wants to know what the work involves, what the organisation is like and what their prospects would be. Material written for one rarely serves the other.

That does not require a separate website — a distinct section within the existing one is usually right. Where paid campaigns are used for recruitment, the same principle applies: send candidates to something written for candidates rather than to the homepage.

Working With a Kent-Based Digital Agency

Maidstone Digital is based in Maidstone and works with businesses in Swanley, elsewhere in Kent and further afield. We do not have premises in Swanley. Most work is carried out remotely and reviewed through shared files and regular calls, though we are happy to meet where useful.

Swanley Digital Agency FAQs

Do we need a careers section if we recruit occasionally?

Something is usually worth having, even if it is one page explaining the organisation and how to get in touch speculatively. What is worth avoiding is a section listing roles that were filled months ago — that gives a worse impression than a simple page saying there is nothing currently available.

Should we publish salary ranges?

That is your decision, though a good number of candidates will not apply without one. Omitting it tends to filter people on their willingness to guess rather than their suitability, and it usually leads to a conversation about money later that could have happened at the outset.

Can vacancies connect to our applicant tracking system?

Usually, depending on what the system allows. Many offer a way to link or embed applications. Where a system provides no sensible connection, the site can still present the role properly and hand over at the point of applying, which is generally preferable to reproducing everything twice.

What should we say about company culture?

As little in the abstract as possible. Statements about being collaborative and supportive appear on nearly every careers page and distinguish nobody. Specifics do the work — how a week actually runs, real photographs of the workplace, or someone describing their job in their own words, where they have agreed to it.